


Detachement

by halbermarco



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Panic Attacks, Triwizard Tournament
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-09 02:46:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13472058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halbermarco/pseuds/halbermarco
Summary: In the midst of the Triwizard Tournament, Keith Kogane, Hogwarts Champion, finds himself invisible to the world. In between people who cannot hear or see him, he finds one person that does not fit the pattern - and as fate would have it, it is his best friend and longtime-crush Lance McClain.or, in which no one‘s seen the Hogwarts champion for a while, and Lance gets to be the hero he deserves to be.





	1. Denunziation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [forbaltimore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/forbaltimore/gifts).



> hey so before you read some trigger warnings:  
> \- panic attack is happening, in which an action of impulse leads to an injury (descriptive)  
> \- implications of depression, a lot of talks about anxiety, but nothing too grave I think
> 
> title means, you guessed it, detachment in german, but it's quote "[intentionally isolating] distant demeanour" unquote (oder, wenn man es ganz genau nimmt: [auf Absonderung bedachte] kühle Distanz)  
> greetings to those who understood that, and to everyone else ofc  
> i hope you enjoy this!

If Lance had to pinpoint the exact moment when it had all begun, he wasn’t sure where to start. Digging up the roots of everything would’ve been the wiser choice, though this wasn’t how Lance saw the nature of it. To him, it already felt like a full-blown tree, with branches thrown about and growing in different directions entirely. They went from the same root and the same trunk, they were still obviously connected, though there was no way to see through the beautiful chaos it created.

Enough of trees already.

Lance thought of many moments that could’ve started it.

Perhaps it was in second year, when Keith got recruited for the Slytherin Quidditch team as the new seeker, because he had proven himself to be fast, an extremely skilled flyer and determined as no other in the practice sessions. The days prior to this, Lance and Keith had practiced together, and Lance was thrilled to hear it paid off. Back then, he couldn’t shake off a feeling of jealousy, wanting so badly to qualify for his own team that it was even hard to smile at Keith that day.

So, perhaps it was when Lance got accepted to Hufflepuff’s own team as a Chaser when it all started. Despite Keith making it on the Slytherin team, he still practiced together with Lance rather than his house mates – after almost two years, and a rather successful few games since Keith had joined their Quidditch team, Slytherins were still exceptionally wary of Keith. So, as the Seeker of the team, there really was no need for him to train with them, especially not if he could just practice with Lance instead.

Maybe it had been at completely different point, some time in Sixth Year, maybe the first time they had shaken each other’s hands before a Quidditch game of Hufflepuff vs. Slytherin, both freshly-elected captains of their teams with a respectable reputation. They grinned at each other proudly, and it might have been the fire in Keith’s eyes that Lance loved, or the way Lance’s hand felt around Keith’s.

Or, it might have been one of the many study sessions after classes whenever Hunk and Pidge tinkered around, trying old and hard spells, or improved potions. Maybe it was all of them, because every time without fail, they would be kicked out of the library for bickering too loudly, instead of studying or writing essays like they were supposed to. Lance would complain every time, playing theatrics to entertain the students around him for a little while at least – Keith would pull him out as fast as he could as to avoid any further embarrassment Lance might bring upon them, though he always left with a small smile plastered on his face.

They found themselves wandering through the castle after that, when it was warm out even to the great lake, resuming their “studying” there.

After careful consideration, and countless talks with Hunk, Lance decided that it really started in Seventh Year. To be precise, on the 30th of October, one day before Halloween – Lance’s favorite holiday at Hogwarts. Their early morning had been interrupted by the arrival of foreign students, either fluttering into the Great Hall (as the Beauxbatons did), or stomping like elephants (which the Durmstrang students gave a rather loud demonstration of).

Lance was immediately captivated by the beauty of the Beauxbatons and decided for himself that he would not lose the chance to ask one of them out when opportunity would present itself. He voiced as such to his friends sitting next to him, all remarkably unaffected by the radiating charm of their French peers, “Do you think one of them will go out with me?”

Pidge scoffed, but didn’t look up from their notes as they responded sarcastically, “Yes, maybe if you ask nicely, your subconscious will do you a favor and lets you dream of them talking to you.”

“Haha, very funny. You know I haven’t been an obnoxious flirt since that time Nyma dumped me in the Great Lake in Fifth Year.”

Now that had Pidge roaring with laughter, “Merlin, I forgot about that for a second.”

Lance glared at them. “How could I have known that she would throw me into the lake like that?!” he exclaimed defensively. “I only wanted to take her for a ride on my Firebolt, it wasn’t my fault she just—pushed me off and flew away.”

Hunk patted him on the shoulder comfortingly, “I’m sure she feels very sorry now.”

Crossing his arms before his chest, Lance sighed, “She better,” he pouted, then smirked. “I might need someone to remedy my hurt feelings, though.”

To emphasize his intentions, he turned around to look at the foreigners, earning several forms of exasperation in response, even from Keith who was rolling his eyes. And sure enough, he said, “They don’t look like they’re here for you to flirt with them, Lance.”

“I can’t believe you, Keith!” Lance gaped at him. “You’re just jealous of the attention.”

“Sure.”

“I mean, look at all the ladies. There’s barely enough Lance for all of them.”

Then, Keith cleared his throat, mumbling, “Well, the boys do look quite fit, too, don’t they?”

“Oh?” Lance smirked, “Well, I didn’t notice. Can’t quite compare to you, Keith.” And he fucking winked at Keith, leaning over the table towards him.

“Get out of here, McClain,” Keith laughed him off, a strain in his voice as he looked everywhere else but Lance. On his way, he found Hunk’s eyes and his knowing smile, and hoped Lance wasn’t paying attention to the way Keith’s cheeks had bloomed in a colorful red. But Lance had already taken Keith’s advice and moved up from his seat, proclaiming, “Maybe I can take someone with me while I do.”  

When Keith’s gaze on Lance lingered a little longer than necessary, Pidge laughed, “Hate to see him leave, love to watch him go, am I right?”

Hunk chuckled quietly as he realized that Pidge hadn’t even looked up from their work before teasing Keith. The boy crossed his arms in front of his chest, and didn’t look at Pidge when he screamed, “Shut up!”

Which only made both his friends laugh louder.

“Why are these people here, anyway?” Keith pouted, crossing his arms in front of his chest like a petulant little boy.

Hunk looked around the Great Hall, which was filled to the brim because of the many students bustling in. He hummed thoughtfully, “Hmmm, seems like something is happening this schoolyear.”

Scribbling something down on their parchment, and still not looking up from it, Pidge mumbled in response, “Yes, Triwizard’s Tournament’s happening.”

“What’s the—” Keith started, but was rudely interrupted by a figure coming towards them with a speed akin to lightning.

“Guys!” Lance called, rushing towards them from where he had been talking to some Beauxbatons students. “I was talking to Allura, that very beautiful girl you see right there, smiling at me,” he turned around, waving at a girl with dark-brown skin and white hair, who waved back a little hesitantly, a misplaced smile on her lips, “turns out they speak French, cause they’re from France! Beauxbatons in France! They’re foreign students, figures, although she speaks perfect British English, which I didn’t expect but what’s more important; Allura told me, in that short moment that we talked, that a) she is a lesbian, to which I replied that I am bisexual – I think we really connected after that. Calling it now, we’ll be BFFs within two weeks. Anyways, more importantly, b) she is here for the Triwizard Tournament!”

Lance squealed in excitement, but was displeased when all of his friends didn’t join in, “Oh, come on.”

“I just told them, Lance,” Pidge chimed in.

Dejected, he sat back down next to Hunk, “Oh.”

“Wait a minute…,” Lance narrowed his eyes at Pidge. “How do you know of the Tournament? Isn’t it supposed to be a secret?”

All eyes went to Pidge, who was still frowning down at their essay, promptly picking it up and examining it thoroughly. In this very moment, they first noticed the confused stares their friends were giving them. They returned the gaze questioningly, and decided that their newest scientific research was a lot easier to figure out than their faces. Maybe they should’ve listened more to what was going on.

“What?”

“How do you know about the Triwizard Tournament?” Hunk asked them again before Lance could. He feared his fellow Hufflepuff was a little too worked up and excited for the event to be patient with Pidge.

“My dad told me this summer,” they said nonchalantly, clearly not realizing what the big deal was. Therefore, they took a book from the stack of books beside them on the bench, flipped through until they found the page they were looking for, and put it down on the table, eager to continue their work.

Keith queried when it was obvious Pidge had no intention to elaborate, “how does he know about it?”

A finger tracing a line in the book stopped in its movement, and Pidge groaned, “He has been working on the first task. Told me at dinner the very first day, even though he was not supposed to.”

“And you didn’t think to tell _us_?” Lance whined.

“Well… To be quite frank, I really couldn’t care less about it. First of all, I am not of age, so I’m not even allowed to participate in the competition, and second of all, there are more important things than some adolescents fighting for something as trivial and superficial as glory and fame. For example, Hunk,” they looked up again to face Hunk, who had been listening intently and now perked up at the attention. “we _really_ have to figure out how to improve the mechanism of the Pertimesco Charm.”

Nodding frantically, Hunk agreed, “Yes, I know! I was thinking, maybe it’s the way the wand is held rather than the way it’s being flicked.”

At that, Pidge only frowned, “No way. The movement of the wand doesn’t influence the effect of the charm, we made sure of that with our trials.”

Pulling up his bag, Hunk revealed some crumpled-up paper – he laid it out in front of Pidge, explaining his thesis to them, “You’re right. But I found some irregularities in our data, cause you know, we didn’t exactly try using just one or two fingers to get the least amount of friction, but whenever I used my left hand instead of my right hand, the result was different ever-so-slightly.”

Pidge still couldn’t quite believe him, “Yes, you held the wand in a different hand, but it didn’t make any significant change to the way the object reacted to it.”

“I know, but—”

Then, as his patience ran out, Lance interrupted their talk, “the solution should be to increase friction, I don’t know how but you’ll figure something out, all right?” Pidge and Hunk stared at him, dumbfounded by Lance’s interjection but definitely considering his input. Meanwhile, Lance continued hurriedly, “Can we leave the science talk behind now, please? Pidge, you should’ve told us! This is a big deal! I mean, schools coming together in friendly competition, daring and courageous students challenging each other for the fame and glory, encouraging international relations with other students…” Lance voice went lower to the end, smiling seductively and turning around to nod his head at Allura.

Keith wanted to roll his eyes at Lance, but ended up having to repress a chuckle at the way Allura only grimaced uncomfortably.

“What is this tournament, anyway? I’ve never heard of it before,” Keith asked, then. Lance just gaped at him, clearly appalled, “Keith Kristina Kogane. I can’t believe you are so uneducated.”

“Not everyone is as interested in history of magic as you are. And for the last time, that is not my middle name!”

“So, you’re saying you have one, it’s just not Kristina,” Lance responds, a grin forming on his face. Groaning in pain, Keith drops his head on the table.

“Can someone just please tell me what it is?” Keith tried again, hoping for an answer this time. Thankfully, the world was blessed with the existence of Hunk Garrett, who didn’t hesitate to present one to him, “It’s a magical competition between the three biggest schools in Europe, which are Beauxbatons in France, Durmstrang somewhere in Scandinavia and, well… Hogwarts. Each school sends out one of their students to compete with the others in three tasks, and whoever wins can proudly proclaim to be the most honorable and the most glorious of wizards to exist… until the next Tournament, presumably.”

“They’ll announce everything tonight, I suppose,” Pidge added, “Considering everyone’s here now.”

“Who’s allowed to enter?” Keith asked.

“As far as I know, you gotta be 17. Age of maturity. Had some deaths in the past because it was too dangerous, so… yeah, no one really wants that happening again.” They scoffed. “If you’ll ask me, I doubt the restriction of age will mender that heartache. Some people are as stupid 17 as they are 15.”

“I see,” Keith frowned, his expression turning thoughtful. From the other side of the table, Lance regarded him wearily – he was very aware of the wheels churning inside Keith’s brain, and he feared the worst. All the cheer and enthusiasm that had been building up inside him vanished all of a sudden.

“You’re not… you’re not considering entering, right?” Lance asked him, an incredulous grin on his face and very ready to laugh with Keith as soon as he would answer in the negative. To his own misgiving, Keith did not do as Lance wished he would. Instead, he looked up at Lance with those wide eyes, staring at him in an almost apologetic manner.

“I… don’t know. I might,” he answered Lance’s question eventually.

Unable to stop himself, Lance scoffed. Keith raised his eyebrows in question, still not moving his gaze from Lance, “What?”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” Lance stated firmly, returning Keith’s stare unabashedly. Pidge and Hunk had turned their heads towards Lance in shock, then to Keith to see his response to that.

“And why is that?”

Back to Lance, who seemed to have hit a wall, judging by the way he looked at his counterpart. Hunk knew what that meant – it wasn’t the first time his best friend had put himself in such a position: in a challenging argument with Keith, giving away too many vague information until Keith caught on and asked him something Lance couldn’t give him an answer to.

So, “Uh,” Lance faltered, “You…..r hair… uh, your mullet, it could get… uh—away. Yeah, something could happen to your mullet, and how am I supposed to recognize you in a crowd afterwards?”

Under their breath, Pidge murmured, “You wouldn’t have left his side in the first place.” They returned to their notes, leaving Keith and Lance to their quarrel. On the other side of the table, Hunk sighed quietly.

“You’re worried… about my bloody hair?” the Slytherin questioned, unable to believe Lance’s… _concern_ was about his hair. Keith was confused by Lance’s behavior, if so accustomed to it.

Long silence followed, as Lance struggled to express his worry for Keith without _expressing his worry for Keith._ Of course, he didn’t want Keith to participate in such a dangerous and potentially-deadly endeavor, he wasn’t a madman and he certainly wished Keith no harm. But he also knew that Keith was a hothead, impulsive and a little more reckless than you would expect from a Slytherin – were he to enter the competition, the stakes were exceptionally high for him to get hurt. No matter how skilled he was, no matter how many spells and hexes and curses he knew perfectly by heart.

Lance didn’t like the feeling sitting in his guts, heavy like a stone and impossible to ignore – he really, really, really didn’t want to see Keith in that competition. But he feared the damage had already been done.

“I… uh, look, I don’t think…”

“Hey, Captain!” Some Slytherins interrupted, calling out to Keith. They were dressed in their Quidditch uniforms, obviously waiting for Keith to join them for practice, “Time for training, you comin’?”

Alerted by the call, Keith stood up from his seat and pulled on his gloves. He cast another wary glance at Lance, and told them his goodbye for now, “Well, I’ll see you guys tonight for the big announcement.”

Then, he left with his housemates, leaving his friends, and a discouraged look on Lance’s face behind. The Hufflepuff groaned, before collapsing dramatically on the table. Hunk went to rubbing his hand on Lance’s back sympathetically, while Pidge told him, more or less consolingly, “I doubt he’ll actually do it, Lance.”

“Of course, he will! It’s Keith. There’s no reason why he wouldn’t do it,” Lance whined.

“Just… wait until they’ve announced it. I’m sure he’ll change his mind,” Hunk smiled at him, hoping to receive one of Lance’s own in return. His wish was granted, albeit in a small manner, and clearly, Lance was still in thought about the Tournament.

In that moment, Lance had really hoped for a change of mind in Keith – he would have given anything, later, as they announced the Goblet of Fire’s use and how one could enter for the tournament. Trailing Keith the entirety of the following day to make sure he couldn’t throw his name into the Goblet had not been an option, and he felt a surge of shame when he considered following through on that idea.

 

ღ

 

_By January in his First Year, Lance had been utterly fascinated with Hogwarts and his school life, but he felt like something was incredibly off. He felt compelled to not pay attention to it and live in a blissful state of ignorance to enjoy his new magical way of life. After all, he was able to write letters to his family every week to report them about the amazing grades he was receiving (with Potions being the only exception thus far) for all the hard work he put into everything, and how much he wanted to play Quidditch with the older students. Everything seemed like a dream come true._

_But it wasn’t like him to ignore his immediate surroundings, it wasn’t like him to not care about others. So, of course it got him down whenever he saw Keith Kogane with his head bowed down, and eyes fixated on the ground below his feet. It physically pained him sometimes to see the boy off all on his own, to see him mocked by his own housemates just for being a loner, though Lance failed to see how it could possibly be his fault._

_So, one day, boldness had struck him, and he sat down next to Keith, wishing him a “good morning” and began to shovel some scrambled eggs on a plate in front of him. He gained strange, disbelieving looks from other Slytherins, even heard one of them call indignantly, “This ain’t your food, prick!”_

_Lance wasn’t going to let himself be disturbed by such nonsense, though, and focused his entire attention on the young boy sitting next to him, who was very obviously confused by the sudden appearance of the Hufflepuff. It was adorable how much it had caught him off guard, considering he was so shocked he forgot to move for a minute._

_And being a good student, after all, Lance had to assume the poor boy was under the influence of a curse or a hex. He was only checking on him, when he asked, “Aren’t you eating?”_

_Poor Keith only shook his head slowly, and well, missing out on breakfast was something Lance couldn’t possibly accept. So, he lectured Keith, “Uh-uh, I’m not having it. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and I’m not letting you skip it. It’s no wonder you’re so tiny.”_

_Keith blinked at him, mumbling defensively, “I’m not tiny,” which was as true a statement as Lance could’ve gotten from drinking Veritaserum, as Keith was only a few inches shorter than himself. For children with the wish to be bigger than the world, both could be considered of average height and highly ordinary-looking. Though Lance, a budding king of exaggerations, tended to paint reality with more exciting twists to come up with entertaining jokes for others._

_Which is why he had so much fun with Keith._

_“Yes, you are! And it is because you won’t even have a good look at all of this amazing food the house elves have cooked us. Come on, Keithers, I know you wouldn’t make them sad by refusing their hard work, now would you?”_

_“No, I guess not?”_

_“See! I bet you wanna get on the Quidditch team of your house, just like me. But to accomplish that, we gotta be stronger. And for that, we need breakfast,” Lance said, putting some food on Keith’s plate without asking him._

_“Uh, I… I do want to play Quidditch…,” Keith murmured, more to himself than Lance, and clearly lost for another reaction._

_“Great! The name’s Lance, by the way. Lance McClain,” Lance grinned at him, holding out his hand. Keith reluctantly took it in his and shook it, “Keith Kogane.”_

_“We share a few classes, don’t we? Herbology, eh? And DADA?”_

_“… Sorry, I don’t really… I don’t really pay attention to anyone,” Keith shamefully lowered his head and looked away, obviously flustered by failing to have noticed such a lively force like Lance. Although he couldn’t really blame himself, as he was only trying to keep his head down so no one would notice his odd behavior, and simply overlook his presence entirely to begin with. In his own house, it was the only possibility he had to escape the bullying, therefore he really didn’t need anyone else to pick on him for the remainder of the day._

_“Oh, that’s all right! I’ll introduce you to the important people if you like,” Lance promised him still, already shoveling too much egg in too little time into his mouth. Keith was seriously stunned by this person, and he had already the slightest whim that he wouldn’t be getting rid of him easily, even if he tried – that was not to say that he wanted to. In fact, it was quite the opposite._

_Nevertheless, painfully overwhelming for Keith._

_“Uh…”_

_“There’s Hunk, of course. Hunk’s my best friend since diapers, we were friends before we even knew we were wizards. He’s crazy smart, don’t let his jumpiness fool you. Nobody gives hugs like he does, you’ll see soon enough.”_

_Keith’s lips quirked up a little despite himself as he listened to Lance talking._

_“And Pidge, well… Pidge is actually so scary. They might be smaller and younger than all of us but they’re more likely to be the cause for the end of the world than anyone else in this school. But other than that, they’re fun to be around.”_

_“I… I know them, actually,” Keith remarked timidly, as a familiar name came up, “They sit next to me in Charms and Transfiguration.”_

_“Really?”_

_“Yeah. And they’re nothing like you’re telling me,” he grinned tentatively, “so, either you’re making up how bad it really is and exaggerate, or they don’t like you.”_

_Catching the drift, Lance laughed loudly, startling Keith, “Hey, they like me just fine, thank you very much,” he cried defensively, punching Keith’s shoulder in a soft and half-hearted manner, “and I am not exaggerating. Maybe they… uh, yeah, I know! They’re plotting!”_

_“Plotting?” asked Keith, disbelief laced in his voice._

_Lance started to nod enthusiastically, screaming in excitement, “Plotting! I’m sure of it.”_

_“Against…?”_

_Searching for an answer in his head, Lance stared at Keith with wide eyes, mouth opening and closing repeatedly, with tiny sounds of uncertainty escaping it from time to time. “Well…”_

_“Yes?” Keith tempted._

_“This is just what we’ll have to find out. Together! Yes, that’s it, good idea. We have to investigate!” Lance grinned maliciously, seeming much too decisive and serious for Keith’s liking._

_“Investigate? Why?”_

_“For the greater good, obviously,” Lance said matter-of-factly, “who knows what they’re up to!”_

_At that, Keith couldn’t help but laugh a little, with Lance joining in after a few seconds. It had been the first time he had genuinely laughed in a while, which conjured a weird feeling in his stomach – something to be named six years in the future, and nothing Keith particularly liked to figure out in this very moment. And fortunately, he didn’t have to, when Lance asked, “So?”_

_“What?”_

_Lance leaned in, voice dropping to the lowest it could get at that time. “Will you be my partner in crime?”_

_In shock, Keith croaked out, “Why me?”_

_And all it took was another grin, and an outcry of “because you seem cool!” for a deeper friendship to spark._

 

ღ 

 

So, on the 31st of October, Keith had looked more determined than ever, sitting at the Slytherin’s table for this year’s Halloween feast. Normally, he’d join Hunk and Lance at the Hufflepuff table, dragging Pidge along. Lance knew why he didn’t this time.

Lance fidgeted with his hands the entire time as all the contestants were called out. First, it was Beauxbatons’ turn: the goblet had thrown about beautifully colored flames, going from the deepest red to the richest violet before revealing a pink piece of parchment. Coran had caught it from where it was floating like a feather, and called out, “Allura d’Altea!”

The Hufflepuff quickly realized it was the girl he was talking to the day before, so he clapped and cheered along with the Beauxbatons.

The next name was quickly spit out by the Goblet, nothing like the show it had put on for the Beauxbatons champion. Coran proclaimed the name of “Lotor!”, and the Durmstrangs engulfed in a cheer of “Vrepit Sa!”, which Lance supposed was a sort of hunting call in support of Lotor’s championship.

However, Lance found himself uneager as he looked at the guy, a tall, lean figure with black skin and long, white hair. Lance had admired the almost white color on Allura, loved it even. When he looked at Lotor, there was no sign of love. Only an indescribable distaste, accompanied by the budding sense of danger lurking around the corner.

The dreaded “Keith Kogane,” was announced at last, and Keith felt rather than heard the thunderous applause. Over the years, Keith had become an infamous figure amongst the student body for his remarkable Quidditch skills – though he was still socially inept and unable to act on his popularity even if he had the desire to do so.

Now, to his own surprise, he didn’t mind the attention that much – and still, through all of the yells and the applause, Keith found Lance’s eyes. Despite himself, Lance managed to throw an encouraging smile at Keith that didn’t even falter when Keith looked down in shame.

If there had been a way for Lance to switch places with Keith, he would’ve done it in an instance. But for now, he didn’t have another choice than to be supportive of Keith and to do his all to make sure he didn’t overestimate himself or his abilities.

Coran’s words rang in his mind the whole time throughout the first task in November, words that didn’t share the least bit of comfort with Lance: “Remember, after your name is picked, you are on your own.” He wasn’t even sure whether Coran believed that himself.

Because Keith hadn’t been on his own the next few days till the first task was due and the Tournament about to officially start. Because Lance wouldn’t let him – immediately after the Halloween feast, Lance had headed Keith off on his way to the dorms and hugged him tight, a promise on his lips to help Keith with anything he needed. So, after Keith had gotten a vague clue about the substance of the first task, they had spent every hour of free time they could spare in the library, looking up useful spells.

It didn’t take long for Allura to join them – especially after she noticed how well Lance knew his way around the library. Although it had started as a way to make use of such a considerable skill, Lance and Allura had quickly come along to a friendship that surpassed the books they were studying until late into the night. At some point, they even bonded over the prospect of going shopping together, in a pursuit of something sparkly.

Those three did make quite a curious team, and unsurprisingly, it played out perfectly for Keith and Allura in their first task.

 

ღ

 

After the mandatory Weighing of Wands, the three contestants were led to the Forbidden Forest. Whoever was to capture a certain type of plant in the least amount of time would be the winner of the first task, ultimately gaining advantages in both the second and third task that were to follow – or so they said. Lance was a lot wearier than before when Coran had announced the objective to the champions, mostly due to the fact that they had looked up anything from charms to hexes beyond their actual capabilities, but hadn’t thought to look up rare plants used in potion making.

In the end, both Allura and Keith had been lucky enough to have listened to Lance’s random spouts about Herbology and knew exactly what kind of plant they were looking for – and how to retrieve it. _Flos se abdens_ or _in silvas me abdo_ wasn’t just like any other regular flower; mainly because it didn’t show itself to just anyone. And especially not if you looked.

That had been the only clue they had gotten before: **do not look, or else I disappear**. Alternatively, with the task in mind, it could be translated to: do not let it see you, and it won’t disappear before it knows you’re there. Keith used a Concealment Charm on his clothes and a mask he had produced to hide his face from view, whereas Allura used a charm to create multiple versions of herself to trick _Flos se abdens’_ perception – their strategies played out better than they would’ve expected at first, with Keith coming in first and Allura close behind.

However, Lotor had highly overestimated himself, going in over-confident and secure about his abilities and skills, but still coming out 30 minutes later than Allura – nevertheless, the Durmstrang students had roared for their unofficial leader, and Lotor boasted in the attention and veneration.

 

ღ

 

For a while, things went on without a hitch. Weeks, then months passed and escaped from their attention. Lance and Keith still had their last year at Hogwarts to fulfill, and despite the Triwizard Tournament taking up most of their thoughts and weekends, none of the professors showed any mercy on them – and certainly not on Keith.

Their N.E.W.T. level Potions class had become harder than ever, and as it was the only subject Lance did struggle at, he had to work accordingly – not only to pass the class, but to make sure he had a perfect final grade to kick-start his career as a Healer.

It certainly wasn’t easy to time his schedule just right – he wouldn’t leave Keith on his own with the tasks, but he couldn’t leave his Quidditch Captain duties hanging, either. Just because this year’s games were prolonged until the end of the school year, it didn’t mean that his team didn’t have to stay in shape. On top of that, his academical success did not come out of nowhere, and required just as much attention as his responsibilities of being Headboy.

In short, Lance was exceptionally relieved to find the Winter holidays approaching. Maybe it was the ever-present suspense lying in the air, or perhaps it was the uncertainty of what the second task would bring upon Keith and Allura that made him feel uneasy. After the relatively mild first challenge, Lance figured it could only get worse from there – worse meaning; more dangerous, with a bigger potential of being deadly.

Those worries were something Lance would ban into the back of his mind for the time being. While no one else knew when exactly the second task would take place, Lance supposed that the Holidays were a time for comfort and harmony. He’d heard of the rescheduling of the Yule Ball, taking place on the 14th of February instead of Christmas – he felt like the break from all the hustle and bustle around the castle was well-deserved.

And, above all reasons, Lance loved the prospect of having Keith home with him for Christmas.

Lance liked to call it a tradition now. Ever since Christmas in Fourth Year, when Keith had looked more gloomy than usual around the holidays, Lance would invite Keith to celebrate Christmas with his family in Scotland. And this year, Lance was more excited than ever.

With all the trouble going on, it was impossible for them to spend one quiet moment together – something so precious to Lance that he ached for it all day, something that couldn’t be satisfied with their intense study sessions and preparations for the Tournament.

He hoped for them in the Holidays. And maybe, he hoped for something even bigger, too.

So, when it was time to notify the professors of one’s decision about the holidays, Lance only wanted to check if Keith still joined him. A problem would start to evolve, though, when Keith wasn’t seen all morning, and Lance was clueless as to the Slytherin’s whereabouts.

 

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Keith woke up that very morning with a piece of parchment neatly positioned on his bedside table. He knew immediately what it was – that it must have been a clue for the second task – something he quietly dreaded for a while, mostly to make sure Lance wasn’t more worried than he needed to be. Now, Keith didn’t exactly feel compelled to look at the parchment, for good reasons.

One, he feared it might prevent him from joining Lance for the holidays, and Two, at the same time force himself to rack his brain for ways to survive the upcoming task – completely on his own accord, with Lance away to enjoy himself. Be with his family, with his parents who had missed him all year, with his siblings who were in desperate need to tease their youngest – but most of all, to be with his nieces and nephews who must have been waiting for their favorite uncle to arrive back home for the festivities.

Keith did not feel any contempt, nor was there anger, and no threat of it to consume him entirely. How could he be of a temper when it came to Lance?  Surely, there were times in which Lance was exasperating, even infuriating – though Keith would never hold it against him, since he knew that Lance only had the best of intentions. It wasn’t his fault that Keith could be a bit of a brat when he was annoyed.

Currently, however, Keith’s emotional state could be summed up with two words: plain sadness. Of course, he was a fool to be eager for the holidays, too hopeful of their promise of happiness and change of atmosphere.

Sitting up in his bed, he noticed his roommates already buzzing around the room. Keith was used to the fact that they had rather to not acknowledge his presence at all than to interact with him, so he wasn’t too perturbed when they didn’t answer his questions about the piece of parchment – not that it mattered who had put it there, anyway. They had moved out of the room before Keith could’ve noticed the true peculiarity.

Though confusion was bound to pick up when Keith took the piece of paper into his hand and read what was inscribed into it:

_As no one watches,_

_As you escape from attention,_

_Retrieve greatness unknown to the world,_

_Use what had hidden itself from you,_

_Make good use before_

_It’ll fade forever,_

_Before it’ll slip out of your hands;_

_Make good magic,_

_And figure out what has befallen you._

Keith slumped back into the cushions.

Riddles weren’t exactly his forte—he wasn’t keen on getting on solving this task – this time, he wanted to do it by himself. No more involving Lance. He felt guilty enough as it was that he took up too much of Lance’s precious free time, and although the Hufflepuff always assured him that he didn’t mind, Keith wouldn’t stress him out any longer. He wasn’t worth the effort.

 

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Keith was determined not to let any news about the clue seep through, but he figured he deserved some food for thoughts – quite literally – before he attempted solving the riddle. He went down to the Great Hall to meet the others for breakfast. When he arrived, most students were already bustling out to begin their Saturday, but Hunk and Pidge were still sitting at the Hufflepuff table. A fond smile found its way onto Keith’s face as he realized they were arguing about one of their projects yet again, so he quietly sat down on the empty seat next to Hunk.

“Good morning,” he said with a smile. No one answered him, so he tried again with emphasis, “Good morning, friends?”

But it was like either of them didn’t hear him. His next attempt was coupled with an insistent hand on Hunk’s shoulder, but he quickly realized that even a greater volume didn’t work. They didn’t even flinch. He then looked around the Great Hall, shouting, “Can anyone hear me?”

Now, there was a certain amount of ignorance Keith had been used to over the years – the Slytherins would never let a moment of opportunity cease without making Keith feel out of place, and that often happened by simply ignoring his presence, pretending he wasn’t in the room with them. But even that had stopped once he showed remarkable success in Quidditch, and brought his house the glory it oh so sought after.

To see no reaction to his shouting had been particularly curious and discouraging, bringing back the memories of a past he’d thought was behind him. Keith felt a panic rise to his chest, taking hold of his lungs. He swung himself from his seat, and rushed out of the Great Hall. Next thing he knew, he was walking aimlessly through the hallways of the castle, students walking by him, clearly undisturbed by his presence.

At some point, Keith stopped in the middle of a less crowded hallway, and curled his hands into fists, finger nails pushing into his palm. He felt an indescribable anger well up inside him, as he let out a loud scream and punched the brick wall next to him. His breathing came out rapidly now, it was shallow and slipped completely out of Keith’s control.

No one had heard him. No one had heard his scream, had seen his punch, or had seen him, no one—not one student passing by, not one professor on the way to their office. No one, no person, no human, no wizard—oh Merlin, what if no one would ever see him again? What would happen if Keith were condemned to be in this state forever? What—

“Keith!” he then heard someone call. Though, as he looked up, his gaze was blurry from the tears that had started to spill from his eyes.

“Keith, oh dear, what happened?”

With an involuntary flutter of his heart, Keith noticed a figure crouching down in front of him – he would later identify the flutter as a reaction of pure relief and happiness, as it was Lance sitting in front of him, talking insistently.

“Keith, come on, I’m here,” Lance assured softly, moving a tentative hand towards Keith’s face. The latter startled slightly, out of surprise from the touch, yet somehow, he was glad of it. Tears had long since faded with Lance wiping them away with a gentle brush of his fingers, and the feeling of loneliness started to subside the longer he watched him. When Lance used his other hand to guide one of Keith’s to his face (“I’m here.”), Keith found a strange kind of liberation in the way his hand felt against Lance’s cheek, reveling in the warmth and the barely-there smile.

Lance had always been what Keith needed – a warmth, an omnipresence, a feeling of comfort. He couldn’t have possibly put it all into words how glad he was that the world didn’t take his treasure away.

A few minutes had passed before Keith’s breathing had returned to normal and he was finally able to register the worry carved into Lance’s feature – usually, it was a blessing to see Lance wearing his heart on his sleeve, to see him share the joy and happiness and let it radiate to every person around him. In this moment, however, Keith decided it was more of a curse.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized profoundly, then, not knowing what else to say. But Lance gathered him up into his arms, a hand pressing his head into Lance’s chest.

He whispered, “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

When he pulled back, he noticed the blood on Keith’s knuckles. When he punched the wall with full force, Keith should’ve expected something like this to happen, but in that moment the fury in his body had to be let out somehow.

“Merlin, Keith,” Lance fidgeted uncomfortably, and took the injured hand in his. With a careful eye, he inspected it for a while before getting up and pulling Keith up with him. He said, “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

 

ღ 

 

The touch on his hand never ceased, yet it had gotten a gentle, caring nature, adamant on preventing further pain. Lance led them to a room nearby, a room Keith had never seen before – it was small, although not too cramped. Keith could see a small cupboard with what looked like bandages and antiseptics, both of those things were rarely used in modern day magic, especially not on small and insignificant wounds such as Keith’s.

Lance sat him down on a chair next to the cupboard, and Keith watched him intently as he gathered all of the supplies he needed. And even as Lance started to work on Keith’s hand, the Slytherin couldn’t help but remark, “You know, there is probably a spell for that.”

But Lance wasn’t to interrupt, and certainly did not stop in his work, as he replied, “I prefer to treat it the old-fashioned way. Before I fuck up the spell, I should stick to what I know perfectly.”

“How do you know how to patch someone up?” Keith asked him, and winced as Lance put some antiseptic on the open wound.

“Try and hold still for me, will you? My… nieces and nephews would play in the garden in the summer, and someone was always bound to get hurt, so… had to doctor some of them back to health. I have seen a lot of scraped-up knees and hands in my time,” Lance smiled a bit in reminiscence. It was obvious he missed them dearly.

“You miss them, huh?”

“Like a lot. With the intensity of all of the stars in the universe.” Keith chuckled quietly, which prompted Lance to look up at him and stop his movements.

“You know, they talk about you sometimes… Rose misses your bedtime stories, because apparently, even her coolest and funniest uncle cannot hold the candle to the ‘boy with the beautiful hair’,” pretending offense, Lance rolled his eyes, but it was too fond to be believable.

“I miss them, too. If I’m even… No, never mind, it’s—it’s nothing,” Keith trailed off, and broke their eye contact. With a sigh, Lance returned his attention towards disinfecting the scrapes on Keith’s knuckle before setting the antiseptic and the cloth he had been using aside.

“Do you want me to bandage it?”

Keith let a lopsided grin form on his face as he said, “What does the doctor recommend?”

“Well, the wound is pretty superficial, so I believe it would be for the best to just let it breathe. Should heal faster. And if not, then we can still go to the Hospital Wing,” Lance asserted calmly, eventually letting go of Keith’s hand, though still crouching in front of Keith. After moments of suspenseful silence, Lance asked, “Want to tell me why you screamed like a maniac in the middle of the hallway and decided to punch a wall instead of coming to me?”

“I didn’t think you’d see me,” Keith whispered dejectedly, lowering his head.

“Is there a reason I was not supposed to?” Lance asked, genuinely curious for Keith’s answer. After all, it hadn’t been Keith’s first time to have a meltdown like that – but ever since the Incidence in Second Year, Lance had Keith swear to him that he would always seek out Lance to help him through. It didn’t work out all the time, as Lance would notice soon enough, but whenever it did, Keith calmed down faster than he would have by himself.

There wasn’t much Lance could do, but at the very least he assured Keith that he was there for him – physically, as well as mentally.

“No one can,” Keith’s voice was so small that Lance almost didn’t hear him, so he tangled their hands together again, careful not to hurt Keith in the process. Then, he asked, “How do you mean?”

“No one can see or hear me, anymore.”

“Since when?”

“I-I don’t know. I guess… I guess since I’ve woken up today. My roommates didn’t react to any of my questions, though they rarely ever do, so I didn’t think it was that suspicious.”

“How did you know, then?” Lance questioned.

“Hunk and Pidge… they don’t ignore me, not even when they’re in the midst of discussing their… you know, their projects,” he answered. “I’m ashamed that I even thought they could.”

“How is it… that I can see you?”

Keith shrugged, “I don’t know.”

Lance frowned, standing up and pacing around the room. Keith could tell he was thinking thoroughly, so he didn’t interrupt him. When it dawned on him, Lance’s face lit up with his newfound knowledge.

“The second task has started, right?” He questioned, and there was something strange in his voice that Keith couldn’t place – he wasn’t sure he wanted to, either. In addition, he wasn’t sure if it was such a good idea to hide the truth from Lance this time, like he had originally planned.

Before Keith had a chance to answer, however, Lance spoke up, “I mean, I don’t think I’ve seen Allura today, either. She was scheduled to leave today, but we wanted to say our goodbyes – when I couldn’t find her, I figured she had already gone. And I don’t think… I’ve seen Lotor, either. Or his posse, for that matter. Must have scattered, now that their leader has disappeared.”

Then, Lance’s clear blue eyes pierced through the last remnants of Keith’s weak defenses, and saw right through him, “You didn’t want to tell me, did you?”

Keith swallowed harshly, but met Lance’s eyes with courage, “No, I didn’t. I still don’t.”

Lance scoffed, “So, what? You were just going to keep it to yourself until the deed is done?”

Nodding, Keith replied, “Well… Yeah.”

“Of course,” Lance mumbled, and turned away, causing Keith to stand up and walk towards him. He frowned, “Why are you mad?”

“I’m not mad,” Lance answered in a tone that clearly translated to mad, and made Keith feel slightly guilty for his intentions.

Still, stubborn as he was, Keith insisted, “You are. Why?”

“I am telling you, I’m not mad.”

Reaching out, Keith put a hand on Lance’s shoulder, a light weight, or a reminder that it was him, Lance liked to think it was the latter. No matter how much his anxiety would tell him differently, right now, Keith was here, and despite the circumstances, despite the scrapes on his knuckles – he was well. He was here with him.

“Lance…”

“You’re not fucking alone anymore, Keith,” Lance said at last, “You’re not the boy from First Year who sat alone at the table because no one liked him. You’re not an orphan without anyone who supports you. You have friends, you have family. Do you think we would just… leave you alone with this task?”

Keith shook his head, “No, I don’t. And I appreciate you—”

Suddenly, Lance turned around to face Keith again, startling the Slytherin so much that it made him retract his hand. Then, he spat, “Do you really think I could just sit there, and watch you attempt the most dangerous tasks without making sure you can beat them?”

“I don’t expect you to do anything, that’s just—”

“Keith, you don’t understand!”

“Then explain it to me, Lance! Because I don’t see how keeping this from you could hurt you so much, since this task is mine to solve, and not yours. I didn’t want you wasting your energy on me again because you are already on the edge of combusting with stress. This bag is mine to carry!” His voice had increased in volume involuntarily.

But still, Lance argued, “It doesn’t have to be. Keith, I would be more concerned if I didn’t know what’s happening to you. I wouldn’t be able to find just one quiet moment.”

“For Merlin’s sake—”

“There must be a reason I can see you,” Lance insisted decisively, “There is no other explanation, I must have a purpose in this, as well. You can’t argue with that.”

Regaining his composure, Keith spoke as calmly as he could, “Look, maybe that’s true, but—but there is no guarantee for that. I could have missed you completely, and then I would’ve found a way to reverse whatever this is on my own. I could’ve handled it – I _can_ handle it,” Keith all but growled, losing patience with Lance. His counterpart didn’t seem to be off any differently.

“What if I am part of solving the task? Don’t you see? In some weird way, I was meant to be here, and I don’t plan on leaving you alone with this.”

“Fuck, Lance… you… I want you to. Let me… do this by myself. Please,” Keith pleaded as a last straw, but Lance didn’t crack.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Lance stared at him for a moment, the few inches he had grown taller giving him a benefit of looking stronger than he really felt. So, he felt a bizarre sense of bravery inside him, making him say something utterly incredulous, “Because I care about you.”

And it shouldn’t be such a strange statement, as obvious as it was to Keith – they were best friends, after all, and had been for a considerable amount of time. But something about the way Lance had said it, with endless emotion and an intensity in his eyes Keith was almost afraid of, made him feel a little frightened.

Lance continued, “I _swore_ to myself, and to you, that I would do everything in my power to help you. And this is what I am going to do. You can’t keep me from aiding you, Keith Kogane. You can’t.”

Dumbfounded, Keith stared at his friend, awestruck by this proclamation – and helpless to do anything about it. He was almost certain Lance didn’t mean it in the way Keith had been hoping for a long time; And the last flicker of hope yelled at Keith to confess everything his heart wanted to, but before he could, he walked towards the entrance of the room, moving to open the door.

“Keith!” Lance called after him, but he only stopped shortly to respond, “It’s not what you said. I… I need a moment alone, all right? I’m sorry.”

And then, Keith was gone.


	2. Determination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh i don't think i need any warnings for this chapter, so we should be good,,,, it's just sad and angry sometimes but no biggie i promise

To say it took a load off Keith’s mind was an understatement.

Out of all people Keith had encountered in his short life, it would have hurt the most to be out of Lance’s radar – Lance would never intentionally hurt him, especially not by failing to acknowledge his presence.

And ever since that day Lance had sat down next to him at the Slytherin’s table, still wet behind the ears from childhood and not much of puberty shown, Keith was made _aware_ of him. Aware of how a single person can be everywhere, can be the sole subject of your thoughts all day, and your last one before you fall asleep.

So, if someone asked Keith when exactly he had fallen in love with the sunshine in the summer, he would respond with a story.

In the holidays following their third year, Keith finally took Lance up on an offer he had been posing to Keith since First Year: spending a week with him and his family at his house in Scotland. Lance had not been able to shut up about the beautiful landscapes, and the way the nearby-lake would glisten in the setting sun, giving off the most mesmerizing of images Keith could possibly ever see.

Solely for the purpose of a ‘life-changing experience’, as Lance had dubbed it, they took up camp there on a warm July night, a day prior to Lance’s thirteenth birthday. And then, as the sun set, Lance had asked him, “Isn’t this the most fascinating thing you’ve ever seen?”

But Keith’s eyes weren’t looking at the sunset, when he replied. Instead, or rather, his eyes were drawn to the figure beside him, illuminated by the golden rays of the sun – he wasn’t sure if Lance had noticed his persistent gaze that night, or the way Keith’s voice turned fond when he finally found an answer to Lance’s question, “No, but it’s close enough.”

Strange thoughts had been circling around Keith’s head all day, as a family surrounded him, and Lance had been by his side to make sure he wasn’t too overwhelmed by the amount of people in the house. For the first time in his life, Keith thought about what it would feel like to have such a big, loving family someday – it was quite a foreign concept to the orphan, but it became more and more tangible when he celebrated Christmas with the McClain’s for the first time.

The feeling thirteen-year-old Keith could not name, fifteen-year-old Keith called love. He realized it beneath the McClain’s giant Christmas tree, as Lance’s laughter rang like bells around the room. He had opened a present from his nephew, something handmade and from the heart, while the little boy watched his uncle intently, with the big eyes a child always had.

Perhaps it was a bit presumptuous of him. What could you do when you took one look at a person, and wished for every dream of yours to come true? He was younger then, but the feeling never disappeared – if anything, it grew, and grew, so much that it pained him sometimes.

But he was used to it by now. He hid it just as well.

In moments of desperation, he dared to dream of a future in which Lance wasn’t just his fellow student, wasn’t just his best friend whom, in all likeliness, he would probably never see again after leaving Hogwarts.

Perhaps that was why Keith had freaked and left. Shell-shocked by the possibility of such a future presenting itself after all. Or maybe afraid of an imminent rejection, because Lance definitely meant it in a more platonic rather than romantic way. And he had put it behind himself, made up his mind about it – he knew how the chances were.

Keith didn’t like the road he was taking. But there was nothing he could do about it if he didn’t want to hurt himself, or Merlin forbid, rob himself of the only friendships he had ever had. So, he banned every sour thought from his head, and tried to get up from the spot in the stairwell of the Astronomy tower. A deserted place on the weekends, especially in the early mornings. After he had stormed out, he looked for a quiet place where no one could find him even if they tried – not that anyone did, let alone could. But, semantics.

 

ღ

 

Now, as Keith walked down, he assessed his situation – he, a champion in the Triwizard Tournament, stood before the most difficult task. A task in which he had been bewitched to be invisible to the world, in addition to the fact that no one could hear him, either.

No one, except for Lance.

But why Lance? Keith couldn’t wrap his head around it, regardless of the way he felt about it. It was a cruel kind of irony: his original intentions of freeing Lance of the burden this Tournament had brought onto him didn’t play out how he had wanted it to. Instead, fate created a twist that would make Lance indispensable to the task, no matter how much Keith loathed to admit it.

Lance was right, there must have been a reason for him of all people to see Keith. Whether it was connected to the Tournament or not did not matter: in any case, they needed to figure this out together.

So, although begrudgingly, he made for his Slytherin dorms to retrieve the clue he had gotten this morning, so he and Lance could take a look at it. It was, at the very least, an attempt at reconciliation for leaving him behind without much of an explanation, when all the Hufflepuff wanted to do was help.

It was a gruesome thing to keep the bird in its cage, to prevent it from flying freely, happily, just how it was supposed to by nature’s will – the same applied to a soul like Lance’s. Let it roam, let it influence and create, and most importantly, let it help. Somehow, even if Keith couldn’t begin to comprehend it, it was Lance’s calling to be an aid to everyone he found deserving of it. And Keith just so happened to be one of those people.

When he arrived in front of the passageway that would lead him to the common room, he mumbled out the password. Just as you would expect from the Slytherin house, it had something to do with their glorious champion for the Triwizard Tournament – which Keith was highly uncomfortable with.

He wasn’t, “The Greatest Champion,” not with Allura around, nor in the bigger scheme of things. He found it more hypocritical than flattering, given the way some of the Slytherins still treated him.

The passageway couldn’t have cared less for his feelings about the password – especially, since it didn’t present itself to him. _Of course_ , Keith thought, _not even the magical entrance to his bloody dorm took note of him._

“Need help, oh so great champion?” A cheeky voice asked from behind his back, and Keith sighed.

“Yes, I do,” he said awkwardly before he turned around to face Lance, and asked him, “How’d you know I was gonna be here?”

Lance just shrugged, “Guessed. Intuition. I know you. You choose.”

The silence that followed was so unlike everything they were used to, tense and almost tangible, though neither of the two really knew what to do about it. Apologies were in order, both of them had stepped out of line earlier, but they were both unsure who was supposed to do the first approach.

Then, Keith gestured behind himself, “Could you…?”

“Uh, yeah…” Lance walked towards him, close enough for the password to work. “Uh, what about your… the other Slytherins, won’t they be pissed that a Hufflepuff walks in just like that?”

“Well, you… you don’t have to go in there, just… open the door, and I’ll get what I need, and come back.”

Nodding, Lance called, “The Greatest Champion.”

“Thanks,” Keith murmured without looking at Lance, slipping through the now open passageway. He was surprised to find the common room and his dorms empty, so he could be quick in his endeavor. He grabbed the bag he had packed for the McClain Christmas with a trembling hand, as well as the piece of parchment.

 

ღ 

 

As it turned out, the room Lance had brought him to earlier was the infamous Room of Requirements – Lance had needed a place away from everyone else to patch Keith up and calm him down, so the Room had gladly provided it for him. And it would always do that, as long as you thought of it very clearly and didn’t force it.

For now, they _required_ a simple place to talk; and they did just that. Or, at first, they only sat still next to each other, with nothing but the sound of their breathing cutting through the silence. Keith noted that it was almost noon, as Lance’s stomach started to grumble violently. Keith couldn’t bite back the laughter spilling from his lips, to which Lance replied with his own.

And as simple as that, their shoulders shook with the easiness of laughter, and the tension disappeared, lifting the heavy weight from their hearts.

And then, after careful looks were exchanged, both started at the same time:

“Keith, about earlier—”

“Lance, I want to apolo—”

They stopped for a moment, before Keith let out a deep breath, “You… you first.”  
“Yeah… Uh, I… I’m sorry. About forcing myself on you like that. I… you were right, I do have a lot on my plate, so I guess you were just looking out for me… But I meant what I said. I am going to help you figure this out, and you can’t stop me. You, my dear Mullet, are stuck with me,” he smiled almost shyly, mouth already twitching into the beginnings of a grin, which Keith gladly returned.

“I’m sorry, too. I feel like I acted like a dick to you, just because you wanted to help me.”

“Still do,” Lance assured, and Keith chuckled, “I know. I know… I mean, I’m useless without you. Couldn’t even get into my own fucking dorms.” He wondered if he had gotten through the panic attack would it not have been for Lance.

“I’m sure you would’ve figured something out eventually,” Lance said.

“Punched another wall, more like,” Keith scoffed in return, “Merlin, Lance, I can’t even sleep in my own bed anymore.”

As with anything else, Lance seemed to have a solution for this problem as well, “Then you’ll just have to come to Hufflepuff with me. Dorm should be empty over the holidays, I mean, I know Hunk will be gone, and—”

At that, Keith stopped short, “Wait a minute. You’re… you’re staying? At Hogwarts?”

“Well, duh. If we want to figure this out, we’ll need a library full of useful, smart books. And as much as I love my family, and my father’s admittedly gigantic collection of books, I don’t believe they will have what we need,” Lance smiled, and he sounded too serene for someone who hadn’t learned too long ago that he couldn’t see his family for the holidays this year.

“But… Lance… Your family…”

“…will understand my decision. I wouldn’t have gone home without you, anyway. It wouldn’t… it wouldn’t have been the same.”

Keith’s frown grew deeper, so Lance hurried to mend Keith’s heart, “It’s fine. This won’t be the last time we’ll see them again.”

And just like that, the severity of the situation collapsed onto him for the second time that day, like going into the darkness without any sense of direction, knowing that there was no way back. Only this time, he wasn’t alone, but paid a horrible price for the hand that was leading him out.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered just so Lance could understand him, “For ruining your Christmas.”

Surprisingly, Lance clasped his uninjured hand into his, and gently commanded Keith to look him in the eyes. Keith saw the honesty in them, like an ocean left to itself, uncorrupted and earnest.

They were windows to his soul, so Keith believed Lance’s every word when he assured him, “Being sorry will not change the reality of our predicament. We will have to deal with it as it is, and by doing so, sacrifices will have to be made. I am not mad at you for that. I feel sad, I am disappointed, but right now, we can’t do much about it… except solve the task, and make the most out of what we have:  each other’s company. That should be enough for now.”

And again, Lance took Keith’s breath away, leaving him speechless with his sincerity. He gave a nod in response and took out the small piece of parchment with the clue, handing it to Lance.

“Is that…?”

The Hufflepuff examined the written words. Then, after a minute or so, he perked up, and grinned a confident victor’s grin, “We’re gonna figure this out.”

And Keith just knew they would.

 

ღ

 

As soon as the holidays had officially begun with the departure of most of Hogwarts’ students and staff, Lance introduced Keith to the Hufflepuff dorms. In their six and a half years at this school, six of which spent as friends, Keith had never once visited Lance, or Hunk, in their dorm rooms – mostly because they always had a different place to be. Classrooms, the Great Hall, the library, or even Hogsmeade: anywhere else than boring bed chambers which left no possibilities for mischief or any other exciting activities.

His first impression was as follows: immediately, he had been engulfed in a golden light, coming from seemingly everywhere at once, and a warm, cozy blanket had seemed to appear around his shoulders. The Hufflepuff common room was full of the most amazing types of plants and flowers, some of them in need of proper tending, which gave Keith a slight idea about the mystery of why Hufflepuffs were excellent at Herbology. Soon enough, his own _Flos se abdens_ stood next to them.

It was soothing, in a strange way – after the days Keith had had, he was glad to be welcomed somewhere he wished he’d belonged to back in First Year.

All Seventh Years had gone home for Christmas, so Keith and Lance had the room to themselves. (“Perfect! Time for some fun sleepovers!” Lance had wiggled his eyebrows, and couldn’t stop laughing after Keith had shoved him lightly. He had landed on his bed, while Keith smiled fondly, “shut up.”)

Their days consisted of a simple schedule, easy enough to follow: they’d take their meals as usual, and in between those times they would venture out to the library, looking for books to find out the cause of Keith’s invisibility.

And although they had solved half of the clue (“The flower from the first task! We need _Flos se abdens_ for this!”), they found that it didn’t help them much – for one, Lance’s knowledge of the flower was limited to its basic attributes, and secondly, books about _Beginner’s or Advanced Herbology_ didn’t give off more than they already knew.

It was frustrating, to say the least. It was one thing for Keith not to be lucky with his own research, but Lance, who would live in the library for the days if he felt like it, hadn’t been particularly successful, either. And it unnerved him to no end.

Keith had to remind him to of the sheer endless number of books just waiting for them to examine them thoroughly, and that it was bound to be a piece of work. Or, a “major pain in the ass,” as Lance had exclaimed on Christmas Day. He had been in a bad mood all day, and it was only a matter of time for him to explode like that. Madam Pince shushed him violently, but Lance ignored her, keeping the glare on the book in front of him. Keith didn’t know how to cheer him up.

In the morning, they had each received a small gift, and letters from the McClain family, the Holt family, and from Hunk. They had fun opening them together, reading every word aloud in funny voices. (When Lance did it, the last few students had regarded him with a distinct look of confusion that you would give a madman talking to himself – which, to their eyes, Lance was.) After breakfast, there wasn’t much that would bring a smile as big on his face for the remainder of the day. All the Hufflepuff would do, was throwing himself into work to distract himself from the images his mind would create: of his family celebrating without them, of decorating the Christmas trees with his nieces and nephews, or arranging the dinner table while his parents were cooking together.

Those rituals meant a lot to him. The heartfelt festivities were the cause for the big heart the youngest McClain son had grown himself. They were a relief to him, a reminder in the back of his mind that he had someone to fall back on, people who would love him unconditionally. His parents giving advice and comfort whenever he’d need it, his siblings poking fun at him and teasing him, yet still managing to be an inspiration to their little brother. His grandmother whispering words of wisdom, his grandfather telling him all kinds of fascinating stories not even the wildest of magical adventurers could write.

Everything he wished for, everything he longed for – a familiarity and security nobody else could provide. It was easy to fall into a depression when you were so far from it.

Keith had insisted Lance get something to eat, but Lance didn’t want to leave the library before he hadn’t figured out how to cure Keith – so, Keith had gone alone, which was weird, but at least no one gave the flying food in the Great Hall a second glance as he ate. It wasn’t such an uncommon occurrence, apparently.

Before Keith would return to the library afterwards, he went to the Hufflepuff basement (it was the only place he could access without Lance, as the entrance reacted to everything he did to it). In the dorms, he looked for a certain photo album Lance kept around – it was a present Hunk had made him a year prior, with moving pictures of his family and his friends and moments of happiness in Lance’s lives. Lance had cried when Hunk had gifted him this, and did so every time he looked through it again.

With the book, he made for the library, and was surprised to see Lance’s head rest on top of a book, using it as a pillow while he was already drifting off. Keith had to put a hand on his shoulder to get his attention, and looked in the unbelievably sad eyes of a child missing his family. He smiled tentatively, putting the book on the table as he sat down next to Lance.

“I thought we could use a break,” he explained almost shyly, and waited in agonizing silence for Lance’s reaction.

As he looked back and forth between the book and Keith, Lance decided that this Christmas maybe wasn’t so bad after all. He rested his head on Keith’s shoulder, snuggling closer, and started their break – they could allow themselves some soothing moments to take their mind off the gravity of a holiday spent too far away, and a tournament with dangerous games.

 

ღ

 

One night after that, they were sitting on Lance’s bed, Lance propped up against the endless number of pillows while Keith sat opposite from him, leaning against the bed post. There wasn’t anything different about that night in particular – their day had been the usual, without any further success in finding out anything, and even though it made fear a constant companion, they were each other’s greatest comfort.

They were only talking innocently, a back and forth, some jabs, some jokes – an outsider wouldn’t even bat an eye to them. Two boys in their teenage years, angsty, whiny, sometimes loud, sometimes quiet, and yes, anxious, depressed, plain _sad_.

They confided in each other, without any known boundary that should not be dared to cross.

Lance didn’t mean to start a bigger discussion, when he asked Keith out of the blue, “Why did you enter in the Tournament?”

Keith, who had just been laughing about one of Lance’s greater dating debacles from Second Year, stopped abruptly, choked on his own spit and had to cough uncontrollably – all from having been caught off guard.

“Woah there, buddy. I didn’t mean to scare you like that,” Lance said worriedly, laughing awkwardly and reaching out a hand as if wanting to help Keith, but he declined with one short, dismissive flick of his hand. He said, “No, it’s—fine. Ju—Just. Fine.”

After Keith had taken a large gulp of water and cleared his throat, he queried, “Why do you want to know?”

Lance considered the question, shrugged and gave an honest answer, “I… don’t know. I just… want to, I guess. I don’t mean to accuse or judge you in any way. It—I guess it occurred to me that I don’t really know the reason why you did it.”

“Oh,” Keith said unintelligently, “uhm, well… you’ll probably think I’m being shallow, but—but I did it for the prize money.”

“The… money? Why?” Lance asked him, frowning in confusion. Keith avoided his eyes, suddenly, and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“Well, I figured I could use it. For when I’m done here. I’m of age now, so the orphanage won’t take me back in, and I don’t have any savings. Winning would help me out for a while until I… have sorted things out.”

Lance felt like the air had been punched out of his lungs. Out of all the possible reasons he would have expected from Keith – recklessness, horrible impulse control, need for the _thrill_ of danger – _this_ had not been one of them. And it pained him to see Keith speak so genuinely from the heart like that, as if his life ended after he would leave Hogwarts – as if he had no perspective.

“You think…I’m sorry, correct me if I’m wrong, but—Are you saying you don’t… Merlin, how do I even phrase this?” Struggling for words, Lance chose to ask another question entirely, “What do you think will happen when you’ll graduate from Hogwarts? What do you think comes after that?”

As Keith looked up at him with big eyes, Lance saw the uncertainty in them. Yet, he still whispered a request, “Please be honest with me.”

After a bit of silence, Keith answered, “I… I don’t think I am going to graduate, for starters. And… well, no one takes a teenage wizard as an apprentice in anything if they’re not even able to… you know, complete their basic studies and can’t see things through until the end. It’s remarkable enough that I passed my O.W.L.s.”

Keith trailed off, though Lance had already a counter-argument ready for him, “But… even so, and I’m saying that I, personally, will make sure we all graduate together. I promise you that. But… you must have… so many sponsors by now – if not from before, then definitely now in the middle of the _Triwizard Tournament_ , as a _Triwizard champion_! You’re a fantastic Quidditch player on top of that! You must have the most famous of teams lining up, all competing for someone like you to play on their team. Geez, I bet some will even let you become their Captain without any further questions.”

Keith’s face morphed into a neutral expression, unreadable even to Lance who was too excited by the prospect of becoming a professional Quidditch player alone. He said, “And I mean… you’re not only good at it, you’re having fun, don’t you? You love playing Quidditch, so why not join a team?”

“It’s not—it’s not Quidditch I love,” Keith responded, voice dripping of a sadness Lance didn’t expect. “I mean, I guess I like it. I wouldn’t be playing if I didn’t take _any_ liking to it…”

Lance inched closer to Keith on the bed, trying, and failing, to establish eye-contact. The urge to reach out and put a hand under his chin popped up, but Lance thought that it might have been too much in that situation.

“But… you always seem so enthusiastic about it. Plus, you’re exceptionally skilled, so being on a professional team sure sounds a lot better to me than—”

“Maybe I don’t like spending the first half of my adult life doing a sport with no spirit whatsoever simply for the money, just to end up with a career involving said sport that I will not take any interest in, either. I don’t want to play Quidditch if I’m not playing with—”

All of a sudden, Keith stopped. He wished he could take everything back.

“With… with what?” Lance asked carefully, his heart beating out of his chest in anticipation of Keith’s answer.

Keith swallowed the lump in his throat, mumbling hastily, “I-I should… we should go to sleep, Lance. It’s late, we… late, talk tomorrow. Or, never, I guess. Hah, I am beat, huh, it’s _crazy_.”

Keith went to sit up, and move as quickly as he could from Lance’s bed towards Hunk’s, where he had taken his rest the previous days.

“Keith, come on, stop,” Lance got up with him, grabbing his wrist. “With what?” He demanded gently, waiting for Keith to turn around again and put them in a more comfortable position. After a while, he did, standing awkwardly next to the bed, facing Lance with the last bits of dignity he could procure.

“I can’t tell you that, Lance,” Keith told him, meeting his eyes.

“Why not?”

“I… Some things are better left unspoken.”

Lance frowned at him. Many, _too many_ thoughts were rushing through his head this very moment: questions mostly, some of which he had been asking himself for months now. Among them, he was not shy to admit, were speculations about the nature of the secrets Keith was keeping from him.

For it was odd sometimes, between them. Had been even more so since the Tournament started. With danger everywhere, having each to rely on had become a necessity to both.

A blind toad could see the gazes they exchanged sometimes, full of wonder and question but undoubtedly of some kind of… _love?_

Lance went mad sometimes just thinking about such an unrealistic possibility. Still, he couldn’t help a voice inside of him speak up, a voice that said, ‘it might be a leap of faith, but are you really that far off?’. And for the moment, Lance decided to indulge in it.

The giant leap of faith.

“Do you trust me, Keith?” Lance asked, and Keith’s breath got stuck in his throat. All he could muster up was a small nod, and a whisper so silent, Lance felt their meaning, rather than heard the actual words which held it, “With my life.”

“Then it’s settled,” Lance said, removing the grip from Keith’s wrist to intertwine their fingers for a moment, and taking a step towards him. Keith’s heart was running wild with uncertain emotion.

“I am not going to force you to say anything; secrets are secret for a reason, and I trust _you_ to have good ones. But, Keith… We have been through a lot these past years. There’s nothing that can scare me away now.”

Overcome with the need for affection, Lance reached up with his other hand to touch Keith’s cheek softly. He was not ashamed to admit that he had always been jealous, to a certain degree, that Keith’s skin didn’t need any further tending to be smooth and lacking irritation. As his thumb traced the line of his nose, he inched closer still – the Sorting Hat had considered Lance to be a Gryffindor once.

“Nothing.”

He finally knew why.

The craving, the pining – all of the battles of ‘what if’ and ‘does he feel like I feel’ seemed to come to a close as he leaned in. With an achingly slow pace, Lance wanted to erase the remaining distance between them. But he saw reluctance, he saw fragility in Keith’s eyes, and whispered between them, “Please tell me if you want me to stop.”

But Keith didn’t hear him – too preoccupied was the young Slytherin to comprehend the sudden twist of the situation. It seemed as if his entire body decided to stop working all at once, his lungs grasping for the least bits of oxygen, his heart aching for a new sensation of relief Keith didn’t know how to come by. And his brain—oh, his brain had given up the very first time Keith had laid eyes upon Lance.

It was a funny sort of irony – with Lance, Keith had found both the main cause for his want to act on impulse and simultaneously, the one person among billions to control said need.

And, see, the thing was… by all means, Keith didn’t want Lance to stop. But what was he to do, now, invisible to anyone but him, with a future lacking any constant, lacking assurance or security? He had nothing to offer to Lance.

Lance surrounded himself with the light of a thousand galaxies, a beauty unknown to many, many eyes but still undoubtedly a cosmic wonder – and Keith? Well. Keith couldn’t even offer him a single star.

“Lance…” he broke their eye contact and removed his hand from his own cheeks, flaming hot by now, but of little concern to Keith. Right now, all he could think of was the hurt and confused look which he would find on Lance’s face if he only looked up again.

“I…” he began, but was cut off by Lance.

He sounded defeated, “I understand,” he mumbled.

Then, before Keith could even blink, Lance had rushed out of the room, leaving Keith alone in the faint golden light of a lamp on Lance’s bedside table, with a heart broken by his own undoing.

 

ღ 

 

It was at around 3.45 am on the 31st of December that Lance found the solution to all of his problems. A mere ten minutes prior, Lance had stormed out of his dorm rooms to escape the budding awkwardness between himself and Keith, after a moment he himself had thought to be of a most tender nature.

Of course, he had been wrong – but none of that now.

He walked through the empty halls of the Castle, up and up until he reached the library, and as it was nighttime, he knew it to be closed. He wouldn’t be Lance McClain, though, Hufflepuff Head Boy, and an honest, hard-working student if that truly held an obstacle to him.

So, he wanted to find refuge between the book shelves that had become so familiar to. After all, there were still some books left that might hold the key to solving Keith’s task.

But Lance was a bright boy – as was told to him by too many people for him to still be insecure about his abilities. For now, though, he granted himself this realization: no book in the legal section of the library would be helpful in his task.

He had been having a hunch about something for a couple of days, a faint idea about the oddity of the Tournament this year. Because from what he remembered about _Flos se abdens_ , and from all the information in the books which repeated it back to him, the flower was as rare as hen’s teeth. It had developed its cloaking mechanism due to greedy, dark wizards who tried making use of it but failed to preserve the flower long enough to figure it out.

If it was another time, and different circumstances, Lance would’ve loved to research the flower himself – although, he might have been an expert on how to grow potions ingredients, but he was not particularly talented at making them.

Perhaps it was fate that he didn’t actually make it into the library, but was stopped by a voice that startled him out of his skin, “I fear it is rather late for a trip of knowledge, don’t you agree, my boy?”

Caught red-handed, Lance turned around to find his Headmaster Coran standing in front of him, dressed in the most extravagant of sleeping clothes Lance had ever seen. Lance had to admit they looked rather fashionable, maybe he should ask Coran where he got them – when he wasn’t just out busting students violating curfew.

“Professor!” Lance shrieked out in surprise. “I, uh… was just making sure… that—”

“Oh, don’t you worry, Mr. McClain. I am acutely aware of your intentions,” Coran smiled slightly, two fingers coming up to play with his moustache like he always did when he was rather pleased with himself. “I haven’t seen Mr. Kogane for a few days, I take it the task has been received on his end?”

He raised his eyebrows to Lance’s confused face, clearly awaiting an answer.

Though, Lance was rightfully lost, “Wait… Are you saying… No, hold up a minute.”

“Oh, is there something wrong, my boy?” Coran queried with a frown. “I assumed you were helping him, please do correct me if I’m wrong.”

Lance swallowed, before he said, “I’m not in trouble, am I?”

At that, Coran laughed, loud and bubbly, shaking his head. Somehow it did nothing to lift the weight off Lance’s heart. “No, of course not. Come follow me to my office, though, will you?” When he saw the wary expression on Lance’s face, he was quick to add, “For a cup of tea, and a little talk. Unless, of course, you want to return to your dorms and call it a night?” He asked him, fully aware that Lance couldn’t refuse now. There was a reason for his nightly adventures, after all, and he seemed rather helpless in this endeavor.


	3. Dilettant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just so you know, i divided the whole thing into three instead of two chapters, because i thought that it was too much too read per chapter. it is still the same thing, nothing has changed.

And that’s how Lance found himself in the Headmaster’s office at four in the morning.

It was, to put it nicely, absolutely strange.

“There you go, Mr. McClain.” Coran said, placing a cup of tea in front of him, “I hope ginger with a bit of lemon is fine.”

Still rather lost, Lance just nodded dumbly. Coran sat down opposite of him, bringing the cup to his mouth and taking a sip, repeating the action for a while until Lance realized that he waited for him to start talking.

“Uh…” he then started awkwardly, “why am I here, Professor?”

Instantly, a loud bang highlighted the cup being put down on the table again, and Coran clapped his hands, “I am glad you asked. May I ask you a question, and we’ll go from there?”

“Sure.”  


“Have you seen Keith Kogane, say, since before the Christmas holidays? And please answer honestly.”

And Lance did, despite his surprise, “I have.”

“Are you… seeing him currently?”

“…Yes, I am.”

“But you’re aware that no one else can? For instance, you could have been fooling me the entire time and Mr. Kogane has accompanied you, not only to the library but to my office, as well. And I wouldn’t have noticed because I do not have the privilege to perceive him?” Coran asked again, a smile on his face.

“Uh, … yes, I mean, it’s possible. But—but not what’s happening right now. As opposed to what you’re heavily implying, Professor, Keith is not always with me and we are not in cahoots with each other,” he replied, if so sounding a little bitter – considering the person he was talking to was his teacher and headmaster, and the person was talking _about_ someone with whom he wished to be together

But Coran just chuckled, “Well, I did not mean to imply anything. I merely wanted to see if I am right about my suspicion.”

“What… suspicion?”

Unperturbed, Coran continued, “I don’t believe they took the possibility of that happening into account. When I first had a hunch about it, I wouldn’t believe it myself until I asked you about it personally.”

“Professor,” Lance interrupted. Coran looked at him with eyes full of curiosity. “I’m sorry, but what are you talking about?”

His headmaster seemed to be a bit stumped after this, but settled his nerves. Before he answered Lance’s question, he inquired with one of his own, “Oh, my apologies. I didn’t mean to confuse you. But say, Mr. McClain… You have figured out the riddle posed to our champion for the second task, have you not?”

He nodded, “Well, yes. Mostly, that is.”

“Please do elaborate.”

At that, Lance sat up in his seat, an unconscious decision. He spoke, “ _As no one watches/As you escape from attention/Retrieve greatness unknown to the world._ Those were the easiest lines to figure out. No one could see Keith, no one could hear him. We figured that greatness meant victory, at the very least in overcoming the difficulty of this task.”

“Very true, indeed. Proceed.”

“ _Use what had hidden itself from you_ and _Before it’ll slip out of your hands_ were rather obvious. We already knew that _Flos se abdens_ was a key to solving the task because there was no point in retrieving a plant as rare as this one without putting it to good use. But just between us, Professor, the scarcity of this flower worries me, and I don’t think using it in a competition like this is the right way to help it.”

Coran agreed immediately with a loud outcry, “You are right, my boy! Bright as day, and well-educated, too. I knew I was in my right mind to make you Head Boy.”

Suddenly embarrassed by the praise, Lance ducked his head to hide his cheeks turning red. He cleared his throat before he continued, “Well, uh… anyways—there’s a part we still can’t figure out. _Make good magic/And figure out what has befallen you._ I suppose we’ll have to find the spell—or _curse_ , if we’re being real, which caused it.”

Coran nodded in thought, “Very clever. But may I ask you why you believe it to be a curse?”

“Well, for one it is affecting him, both physically and mentally, although he tries to hide the latter from me, because he knows it’s affecting me too. And secondly… I have never heard of any magic which completely eradicates you from everyone’s attention. I think it’s dark magic,” he finished, his voice dropping to a whisper, “or, at least, magic with a dark intent.”

He moved his gaze towards Coran, and was surprised to see his face so serious. He watched as Coran sobered up to a worrying degree before he looked Lance in the eyes. There was something else Lance couldn’t quite decipher, like a mark on a man who recognized things turning graver by the minute. It was gone before Lance had the chance to ask him about it.

His headmaster sighed, “Which is, by definition, dark magic, Mr. McClain – Oh, quiznak. Do I have permission to call you by your first name?” A nod, then, “Well, Lance, I won’t lie to you. Keith is certainly very lucky to have you fending by his side, and to have a support as unconditional and devoted as yours.”

He sighed, “There are… dark forces emerging, which is information I cannot deny you, but I do wish I could. And I had suspected they would take ahold of this friendly competition… though not in this way.”

“Professor… Are you saying—”

“I am not saying anything, my dear boy,” and just like that, Coran had started laughing again. Lance didn’t like how put-on it sounded. “But do be careful. I know your heart to be in the right place, and I trust you to make wise decisions.”

Lance still frowned at his headmaster, a strange feeling sitting in his stomach. He hadn’t been aware of their world facing a threat – surely, there had been some dark wizards roaming about, but nothing out of the ordinary, nothing the Magical Defense Department and their Aurors couldn’t deal with.

“What’s going on?” He asked him again, desperate to hear an answer from him. He couldn’t keep the worry out of his voice, which made Coran falter in his posture.

“There are some… individuals from all over Europe who believe in the rebirth of – how to put it? – of old magical procedures, practices which have been forbidden for centuries. They take their inspiration from those practices despite the knowledge that they are still illegal – for good reasons. Besides that, they have rather conservative views on… Muggles and muggle-born wizards.”

Lance’s face fell, along with his spirits, and Coran hurried to elaborate, “They’re not too powerful. No more than a few desperate voices no one will listen to or pay any mind. Which, ironically enough, is the reason they are so dangerous.”

“And you believe they have somehow influenced this competition,” Lance acknowledged, purposefully phrasing it as fact. It made sense to him, somehow – to revive a competition between different schools, all set within countries with different views on magical law. For some, the Triwizard Tournament meant international partnership, a battle for glory. But there were still the few amongst them, taking it too seriously and believing in their own school’s superiority over any other.

Fuel said competitiveness with new, exciting tasks of a darker nature you have an entirely new playground for both your old, illegal spells and a budding rivalry between wizards.

Lance felt sick to his stomach.

“I had my suspicions they would meddle. Although none of them are confirmed thus far – but I can’t help the feeling that you are right, Lance. There must be dark magic at hand, if so at a passable and less observable rate… Oh, please do remember to drink your tea. Most fall victim to the consumer’s forgetful and easily-distracted mind.”

Lance laughed, despite himself, and looked down at his cup of tea – the steam had long since dissolved into the air. He found the tea to still be pleasantly warm.

“Can I ask you something, Professor?”

“Oh, please do not hesitate.”

“How much do you know about the tasks the champions receive?”

“Oh, not as much as you should think! I know the substance of the task, and I know how to help a student if things turn dire. But they have left me in the shadows about this specific task – which has only amplified my suspicions,” Coran replied, taking a big gulp from his cup. “If you’re asking for help—”

“I’m not,” insisted Lance. “well, maybe I am. But… I just thought that, if you knew what it was they did to Keith… I could investigate more closely, with a goal in mind. Like a… like a private investigator, some sort of spy.”

Coran laughed loudly at that, and this time Lance believed in its sincerity. “Oh, I really cannot tell you anything else – I’ve already said too much tonight.”

Lance tapped on his cup with a nervous rhythm as he raked his mind for another solution.

“You could give me access to the Restricted Section,” he said then, in sudden moment of inspiration. Coran laughed once again, until he met Lance’s stern gaze. After all, despite Coran’s previous assumption, Lance had been serious this time.

Puffing out some air, Coran argued, “You know as well as I do that I cannot do that.”

Lance did not follow, though. “You’re headmaster. If there is anyone who has control over these type of things, it must be you.”

“I will let this attempt at rule-breaking slide for your sake, _Mr. McClain_. I will not have to repeat the procedure to you which you are obligated to follow if you want to obtain a book from the Restricted Section. And most importantly, I will not have to tell you about the Golden Hour when all of the spells on the books are lifted for an entire minute twice a day,” Coran reprimanded him, but got up from his seat with the cup of tea in his hands, absolutely conscious about what he had just said – though he didn’t expect Lance to be as quick to respond to it.

“The Golden Hour? But it’s just a minute? Rather misleading, don’t you think?”

“Oh, certainly. Though, not quite, if you really think about it.”

Lance’s face grimaced into a frown as he did just that, taking several sips from his tea. Then, as an idea struck him like lightning, he yelled out, “When’s sunrise?”

The corners of Coran’s mouth lifted ever-so-slightly, “Not for another three hours, I’m afraid. I suggest you take to bed now. A short nap, at the very least, is essential for your work to be successful.”

“Thank you, Professor!” Lance beamed at him before he got up quickly, almost toppling over the chair he had been sitting on. “Have a good… morning!”

“You too, Lance. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor,” Coran nodded at him, and sent him on his way.

Just as Lance was out the door, he hummed happily, “Oh, to be young and in love again.”

 

ღ

 

When Lance returned to his dorms, the lights had a faint glow about them, as if they were awaiting him to finally join everyone else in their slumber. When he entered the Seventh-Year chambers, he was surprised to see Keith, engulfed in the same dimly-golden light, lying in his own bed on top of the blankets. He was curled up like a puppy, hanging onto the pillow as if it was a lifeline – hugging it like a person.

It wasn’t the first time Lance had seen him sleeping in the years they’ve known each other. It was bound to happen, what with the amount of sleepovers Lance had insisted on whenever they were away from school, and away from each other and all their friends. One time, he dubbed them ‘group-bonding activities’ – a suggestion which was playfully mocked by Pidge, but accepted when they realized their effect.

He made a lot of great memories with the three of them. And he loved them deeply, unabashedly like friends should.

But right now, standing in front of his bed at nearly five in the morning, he was reminded of just how different he loved Keith from Hunk, his best friend whom he would give his life for, or Pidge, the little sibling he never had but found in them. It almost made him forget what happened earlier that night, and the weird feeling he couldn’t get out of his system.

Slowly, he sat down on the bed. Although he moved as quietly as he could, the figure on the bed stirred and just a few seconds later, Keith blinked his eyes open. When he noticed Lance’s presence, he croaked out, “Lance? Where were you?”

“Just… out and about, nothing to worry about,” he responded in a soft voice, careful not to disrupt the fragile tranquility of the moment. “I’m sorry for storming out.”

With glazed eyes, Keith regarded him in silence, before he whispered, “I’m sorry, too.” Keith held out his hand, which Lance took in his without a second thought. The physical contact seemed to be all Keith needed, “Will you lie down with me?”

Lance smiled at him, and said, “Scoot over.”

And as Keith did, his eyes already half-closed again, Lance simply took the blanket from Hunk’s bed to pull above Keith’s slender figure before he settled down next to it, pulling the covers up to his chin. Underneath, he put his arms around Keith’s waist, whispered, “That okay?”

To his surprise, Keith only snuggled closer, hugging Lance fully. He nodded against his chest. Lance thought there was no way that he’d ever feel as comfortable again as he did now, with Keith curled around him instead of a stupid pillow.

It erased every worry from his mind. Sleep came almost too easy.

 

ღ

 

On the 31st of December, the sun rose at 8.22 am.

Lance had entered the library at 8 am, still rather groggy from the nap he had, and decidedly discouraged because he had to escape the cocoon he was sleeping in. So, the situation was less than ideal – but Lance had a plan, one that might cost him his position as Head Boy if he failed at it.

The things he did for Keith.

The plan itself was rather simple, but it depended on Madam Pince’s trust in Lance: He would greet her with a message from Coran, saying it was urgent and required immediate attention. Then, hopefully, she would believe him and leave the library under his watch for a while. She had previously entrusted him with it since he had been appointed Head Boy, so she knew that he wouldn’t abuse his privileges. This way, he hoped to have her out for at least ten minutes, nine of which he would use to search the aisles of the Restricted section for a book he could use. When he found one, he’d wait for the Golden Hour to start and take the book.

He… he still had to figure out how to do research in the book if there was only a one-minute window for him to use it. He couldn’t take a picture of it, nor was he able to write everything down in time. But he was certain he’d think of something. Not like he really had much of a choice, anyway.

And as it turned out, not much luck, either.

“I swear I can explain!” Lance insisted desperately, two books of _Dark Hexes of the Past_ and _The Scarcity of Plants_ in his arms. And, admittedly, were he in Madam Pince’s place and saw himself like that, he wouldn’t appear particularly… explainable to himself, either.

Madam Pince stood with her arms crossed, regarding Lance with an unimpressed expression. She shook her head, sighing in exhaustion as if having caught one of the students with books from the Restricted Section had absorbed all of her energy – never mind that it was only just past 8.

“Save it, Mr. McClain. Do you think you are the first student to abuse his position in an attempt to break the rules? Do you believe me as gullible as the next person?” She snapped with little patience left, glowering him down. Lance did wince away slightly, but kept his grip on the books firm and determined. “Give those books to me,” she commanded, and moved towards him, but Lance had something else set in mind, and stepped away.

“Please let me explain first, I swear i-it’s as reasonable as is usually expected of me.”

Madam Pince looked ready to murder him, “Mr. McClain, I will not stand here and let my person be mocked by you.”

“I am not mocking you, Ma’am, from the bottom of my hea—” 

“Silence! Or else, I will stupefy you!” He stopped talking at once, and swallowed harshly. His morning had been rough enough as it was, he didn’t want to endure any back pain that would ensue from the stupefying.

“I will give you a chance to explain yourself,” Lance’s face lit up instantly. “ _But_ you set the books down immediately, and don’t you dare take them again.”

“All right, all right.”

She gestured to a table with her wand, and Lance hurried to put the books down, although he was very reluctant to let go of them. After all, he had only one chance to reconcile with Madam Pince, and therefore, inevitably, at investigating the contents of the books. For a brief, shameful second, he considered pulling his wand and stupefying her himself. However, he didn’t act on the impulse – it was a Keith Thing to do, and rather foolish in the given moment. She wasn’t his enemy.

Besides, Lance prided himself with his charming personality – now was the perfect opportunity to show it off, put it to good use. Hunk and Pidge would be in for a surprise once they returned to Hogwarts.

“Well, explain away. Before I lose my patience with you.”

“Okay, um… It’s for Keith Kogane. Why I did this, I mean,” Lance started, weighing what he could say over in his mind, “I don’t know if you’ve been following the Triwizard Tournament, but… uh, well. Keith’s our champion. And I—I am helping him… be the champion. And for that, I needed those books.”

He saw her nod, and mumble in a neutral voice, “I see.”

But then, to his horror, she picked up the books with one swift movement. He cried out, “No, no! No, please, okay there’s more, just please don’t take them away just yet.”

She eyed him carefully, but set the books down again. Lance breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Uh… Okay… You’ve seen me these past few days in here, right? Well, I have been for a reason. The helping-Keith-be-a-champion-reason. And see, the thing is—I mean it’s this… this flower. _Flos se abdens_. The one they had to find in the first task. It’s an incredibly rare flower that hides itself from the world because it’s been… well, that’s not important right now. Anyway, it hides itself. And well, they kept the theme for the current task cause no one can see or hear Keith, either. Except me. Which is a big reason why I’m helping him—aside from, uh, other reasons.

“We’ve been here all week looking for _something_ about this stupid flower, or about any spell or hex or bloody _curse_ which makes you invisible, but—nothing! I swear I’ve looked through the whole Legal Section, there is not a single book about anything like we’re experiencing here!” He almost cried out, growing desperate.

“I just… At some point one does grow suspicious, so I figured—I figured it’s dark magic. A curse. Possibly very, very old. And then I talked to Headmaster Coran about it, and long story short, he told me about the Golden Hour which I thought to be a broad hint, so I—”

She cut him off with a sigh, “you thought it was an open invitation to trick your librarian, and evidently _steal_ two books from the Restricted Section.”

Lance cleared his throat nervously. “Well, if you put it like that. But I… look, do whatever you need to do to punish me: ban me from the library forever, make me work here in my free time, make Coran remove me from my position, I don’t care – just, please, let me have twenty minutes with these books so I can finally figure this out for good. I am desperate, I am very tired, and I fear we are running out of time,” he pleaded with her, and all of a sudden, she saw something else in his eyes.

“It is getting to him, I can tell. I just want to… No, I _need_ to help him. By any means necessary,” he concluded finally, slumping in on himself. “That’s all I got.” _Here’s to hoping it’s enough_.

For a few minutes, Madam Pince said nothing as she regarded Lance on the other side of the table. Her eyes flickered to the books and back to him in consideration, but she relented, “You’ll have fifteen minutes. No notes. And I will watch you the entire time.”

“Oh my—”

“ _And_ ,” she said pointedly, “we will discuss your punishment with Professor Coran when school starts again.”

“Thank you so much, Madam Pince,” he beamed at her, a grin on his face. “You’re a lifesaver.”

She scoffed softly when she got up from her seat, and moved away to her reception. As her back was turned to him, she couldn’t help but shake her head at the dedication the boy showed. When she looked back at him, he was already working feverishly, skimming page after page after page for the flower or the curse – he was full of fear, she noted with a flash of worry.

She hoped he found what he was looking for.

 

ღ

 

_The Evanesco curse. Strong, dark magic – forbidden in 1534, mostly due to its frequent use on Muggles in the medieval ages. It did not inflict any physical damage on its victims, nor did it alter the state of mind the victim would be in. Frustration, depression and loneliness were symptoms which would develop as a result of the isolation from the world. In some cases, those sensations would eventually lead to death, oftentimes by choice._

_Two cases have been reported in which the victim could be cured._

_One, with a type of potion made out of Flos se abdens, as documented by a wizard called Nar Pillower in 1525. He was studying the flower as a rival of his intended to disrupt those studies and steal the flower from him by cursing him with the Evanesco curse. Rather by coincidence, Pillower realized he had cured himself after he used the petals of the flower to brew himself tea – a rather simple procedure, as tea was easily made by boiling water and putting the petals in. Pillower also reported a distinct taste, ‘almost like feet’. Furthermore, the effects had seemed to settle in exceptionally late, and only when the tea was already cold for a number of hours._

_The second case was reported by a young couple in 1532, two years prior to the law which would evidently forbid the curse. The woman had been under the influence of the curse, but her husband was adamant on the fact that he could see and hear her. When he kissed her, their children were suddenly happy to see their mother once again. Due to the man’s ability to see the woman, he was generally assumed to be the her soulmate (See for more information on soulmates: **More than A Bonding Moment – The Universe’s Attempts at Forging Love**.). Although this case seemed apparent in terms of how the victim had been cured, it was unclear whether it was the first kiss since having been cursed, or the man’s status as her soulmate which worked to its success._

 

He really couldn’t wrap his head around it – whoever decided on using a forbidden curse in a competition where the competitors were barely of age, could not have done it without ulterior motives. And besides, how was it possible for several adults to fail like that, to disregard the dangers of dark magic _completely_ , and instead letting it loose at children.

 _Someone had to have noticed_.

Lance was ready to punch the next wall in his way, just like Keith did only days ago – just like he did because of this stupid _fucking_ curse. Lance was furious, felt so unlike his usual character that he was about to direct all the anger at himself instead. Because it was one thing to suspect that something wasn’t right about the entire situation – it was another to find an even worse horizon already dawning.

 

ღ

 

In his dreams, Keith heard a voice call to him sometimes. A faint sound, murmuring and whispering words of comfort like a mother would. And every time, without fail, he would look for the owner of the voice, in hopes of finding his own mother speaking to him – a sign that she never actually left him, or if she did, she did so unwillingly and with a broken heart.

Sometimes he had to fight for it – sometimes people in masks would come at him with swords raised and a ridiculous speed, challenging him to a battle of life and death. It seemed that, even in his sleep, his mind would never be able to rest. All he wanted was someone to love him like a parent would – without having to fight for it.

It never worked out, either. Just as soon as he would pass those trials – as he had come to calling them – a figure would appear, a silhouette from the past, he was sure. He took off running towards it, faster, faster every time before it would disappear. Sometimes he’d call out a name he couldn’t remember as soon as he woke up.

Keith never found out who it was. No matter how fast he was, whoever he was calling out to… didn’t want to be recognized. Or, at least, not by him.

As soon as the person dissolved into thin air, dark silhouettes would surround Keith, circling in on him until the air was too tight and he struggled to maintain a steady breath. Sometimes he would cry out for help. More often than not, he had already given up.

 

ღ

 

Keith woke with a start, but quietly. He sat up in the bed, trying to catch his breath running aloof. Beside him, Lance kept a peaceful slumber, looking very well like he needed it. They had both been researching a lot these past few days, and last night was no exception – one thing they had to sacrifice, among many others, was sleep.

And Keith was tired. So very tired. From those dreams, from the Tournament, from being held back by this stupid task. And while he wasn’t much of a people’s person, he would have never thought he could ache for some stranger’s attention. There were times in his past where he wished to just be invisible, times in which disappearing from the world felt like the only positive outcome his life could ever have. He felt foolish now, for ever uttering this wish.

As his breathing came back to normal, Keith laid down again, not ready yet to face the excruciating work of the day. He moved onto his side, and regarded Lance (his favorite pastime, without sounding too much like a creep – although he believed he crossed that line some time in their Fifth Year). He had noticed him leaving earlier in the morning, but had then decided that he had better sleep some more before he would ask Lance about his reasons to be up after a mere three-hour-nap.

He didn’t know the time of his return, just like he didn’t know what time of day it was. The curtains had been drawn together, and the little light was not much of an indicator, either. It could be any time from late morning to early afternoon, but he really hoped they slept in for once. They were on their holidays, after all, even if it didn’t much feel like it.

And for the sake of the holidays, Keith snuggled closer to Lance and tried closing his eyes again to maybe catch the remnants of sleep in his body. His arms looped themselves around one of Lance’s, and held on tightly as he put his head into the space between his face and shoulder blade.

“You done?” a groggy voice asked him, and Keith startled, opening his eyes in shock. He drew back to look at Lance, and to his relief, he only smiled at Keith fondly, a goofy kind of a lopsided smile which was suddenly interrupted by a big yawn. Keith thought it was adorable. He probably grinned like a lovesick fool right now.

“Good… afternoon?” Lance tested out then, his voice still very rough from sleep. “Wow. No,” he decided. “No, not doing that. What time’s it?”

Reluctantly, Keith rolled over to take a look at the watch on his bedside table, groaning when it read, “Two-thirty. We have outdone ourselves this time.”

“We deserved it, Keith,” Lance said softly. “Especially you. Looked like you really needed those extra hours.”

“I doubt it,” he responded with a laugh, moving closer again. “Have you looked in a mirror this past week? The rings under your eyes have kids.”

Lance snorted, “Are you saying I look bad?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Keith told him, laughing loudly. Lance was stunned for a moment, but joined in with a loud, “Jerk!”, punching him in the shoulder without any real force behind it. He loved these moments between them. He found he loved waking up to Keith, too.

As they came down from their high, somehow their hands found each other in the middle of the bed, intertwining on their own accord. When the laughter ceased, their eyes locked immediately, ridiculous smiles still plastered upon their faces.

For now, that was enough to forget the worries.

 

ღ 

 

At some point, they had to talk about last night. It was the big elephant in the room they couldn’t ignore forever, even with other problems on their plate than stupid talks about their relationship to each other. And, what Lance supposed would be quite some news to Keith, the fact that they were soulmates didn’t exactly make it easier for Lance to approach the subject.

In fact, it was one of the hardest talks Lance would ever need to have – but his mother told him that communication and honesty were key to a functioning relationship of any kind. And Lance meant what he had promised to Keith: after all these years of friendship, there was nothing that could make him leave him. Period.

So, Lance started when Keith himself took the initiative, “Where were you earlier?”

They had moved to the Hufflepuff common room where a fire was burning low. Lance answered, gesturing to a lonely cup on the table, “I, uh… made you tea.”

Keith’s face morphed into a confused frown, “Uh, thanks? No—offense, but shouldn’t it be cold by now?”

“Uh, yeah. That’s kind of the point.”

“Okay?” Keith took the cup in one hand and smelled the odd-looking fluid. Appalled by the stink, he almost let go of the cup, cursing loudly, “Merlin’s fucking guts, what the fuck is that?”

Lance laughed at his reaction, but patted his shoulder in solidarity, “You should’ve smelled it when the tea was still warm. I almost puked while making it.”

“What the fuck is it?” Keith repeated, his face still scrunched up in disgust.

“ _Flos se abdens’_ petals? It’s a… it’s a long story.”

Keith stared at him with wide eyes, before he broke out into a grin, and whispered almost breathlessly, “You—you figured it out?”

“I guess so… as I said, it’s kind of a long story.”

“Tell me!” Keith insisted. And, well, Lance wasn’t about to deny him that, not while his smile could light up the entire room – something as rare as _Flos se abdens_ itself, and dearly missed in the past days.

“Well, uh… after we had that… thing yesterday where I left—I just went to the library, but seeing it was in the middle of the night, I wasn’t really supposed to be out. And Professor Coran caught me. Then, he invited me in for tea, which uh, was a thing that happened. Yeah. I won’t bore you with the details, but he let me in on a secret to do with the Restricted Section which I then used to get access to it. But I got caught again, this time by Madam Pince who, uh, as you can guess, did not offer me tea but instead, she banned me from the library for the time being and let me look at the books I had picked out for only 15 minutes. Incredible, right? Very cruel.”

Keith was quite literally on the edge of his seat on the sofa, when he asked, “Well, what did you find out?”

Lance immediately sobered up at the question. He cleared his throat, “It’s dark magic, Keith. A curse forbidden for the past 500 years or so. It’s—it’s not incurable, entirely, but I’ve read that there have only ever been two cases where the victim’s been helped.”

A flash of fear crossed Keith’s face and Lance reacted immediately – a hand was put upon Keith’s in his lap, and a squeeze assured them of the other’s unconditional support. Anxious smiles were exchanged between them.

“The tea is just one possible solution. It only works if it’s been cold for long enough, which is why I prepared it in the morning. Although the instructions were rather vague, so I don’t really… know when the tea is cure-ready.”

He felt Keith tense against his fingers, and started stroking a soothing thumb over his hands.

“What if it doesn’t work?” Keith inquired in apprehension.

But Lance was quick to assure him, “It will work. It’s what you are supposed to do to beat this task and win.”

As if he still couldn’t believe it, Keith frowned at the cup in his hands. Lance could tell he was still weighing things over in his head, and that there was another question on the edge of his tongue he was dying to ask.

“Have you… found out why you can see me?”

Oh. Yeah. That. He forgot to mention that.

“Uh,” he prolonged with his voice, and suddenly words seemed to be stuck in his throat. “I—I did. I think.”

“So? Is it something bad?

Lance laughed nervously, “Well, that depends on you, buddy.”

“How do you mean?” Keith’s eyebrows drew together in confusion like they did every time he failed to understand something, and Lance had to suppress a groan of frustration. It was hard enough to deal with clueless, _adorable_ Keith on a daily basis – somehow, this situation made it even worse.

“I…Okay, so there was a couple back in the day, married, with a family. The woman was cursed just like you, but uh… her husband saw her. They reckoned that, um, that—because he loved her, and she, uh, loved him back… you know that’s why, it worked when he… kissed her.”

Keith’s heart was doing somersault in his chest, quite the contrast to his calm voice, “Like… in those fairy tales you read to your nieces and nephews?”

“Where true love’s kiss solves everything?” Lance coughed. “Yeah, I guess. Those. With a magic binding by the universe, of sorts.”

Stunned into silence, Keith stared at him for a long moment – Lance had to admit that he was taking it like the brave champion he was. At least if you tuned out the way his body seemed to have frozen in shock.

Lance attempted to do damage control as he took the cup tea from Keith and sat it down on the table again, all the while moving closer inch by inch. Slowly, he lifted both hands, putting them on Keith’s shoulders in a soft touch. Keith followed his every movement with the utmost curiosity, and maybe a little surprise. Then he spoke quietly.

“He was her soulmate, Keith. At least, it’s what they believe because they can’t explain it otherwise. And… way I see it we’re…”

“Soulmates,” Keith finished in a voice of incredulity. In lieu of another response, Lance only chuckled helplessly, “Yeah. Crazy, right? Guess you probably didn’t imagine _that_ when I told you that nothing scares me away.”

But then Keith’s face fell, and he looked down, “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“That this happened to you. I have nothing to give you.”

“Wha—”

“Well, it’s the truth, isn’t it? All I am is a huge inconvenience, I am too much to work with, and you spend your well-earned holidays helping me with stuff I should have been figuring out on my own,” Keith mumbled.

“Keith, can I ask for your honesty?”

“Yes?”

“What… what are you afraid of?” Lance asked him quietly.

“Fucking this up,” he answered truthfully. After a beat, he added, “Making you leave me – I, I don’t know what I ever did to my parents other than exist, but they didn’t feel much like sticking around either. I thought… I thought it would be the same with you. Some day you will grow tired of me or realize that I’m nothing compared to you.”

Lance offered his hands to Keith. The Slytherin regarded them for a moment but laid his against them at last. They felt warm against his naked skin.

“I am not as grand as you make me out to be.”

Keith’s head shook violently, “You are everything, Lance. Despite your own insecurities, despite all the hardships you faced, you still manage to be _you_. Smart, and courageous, and selfless. I know you can’t see it yourself but you—you—”

“Keith, stop!” Lance yelled, uncharacteristically loud, and startled Keith to a halt.

“I’m sorry for yelling,” he hurried to add in a softer voice when he noticed the hurt look on Keith’s face. His sudden outburst had hit Keith in a place Lance knew to be a sensitive subject. Naturally, he felt guilty for bringing Keith back to memories of the more unpleasant times in his childhood, and repeated, “I’m sorry for losing my patience like that.”

“It’s…it’s fine—it’s fine,” Keith assured him in a small voice, and clearly not fine – although Lance couldn’t tell whether it was him just now, or the general severity of their situation. “Just—just don’t do it again. Please.”

“Can I… uh, hold you? Would that help?” Lance asked carefully, his heart heavy in his chest. Keith nodded in the barest manner, and Lance threw an arm around Keith’s shoulders, placing his head against his chest.

They didn’t talk for a long while after that, just sitting there together in the tense atmosphere.

“You are all of those things, too, you know,” Lance dared to whisper after minutes of silence. “Smart as a whip, it’s what my mother calls you when she talks about you.”

Keith huffed in disbelief, “She talks about me?”

“Well… _I_ talk about you a lot. It’s catchy, apparently. Plus, you always leave a very good impression with my family: you know, my dad was surprised you knew so much about cars of all things. You’re good with your hands, he says. Oh, and Rose? I think I already told you this, but you’re by far her favorite story-teller ever.

“Mine, too – I mean, if we’re being honest, no one really expects something so… heartening. You know it’s funny,” Lance actually accompanied that with a small laugh, Keith felt the sensation vibrating against his head. “You’re selfless like that, too. It’s, uh, admittedly not always very well thought out, but…

“You know how anxious exam season makes me. So, you once told me this—this story about absolutely crazy flying lions that are somehow both robots but also magic, and it’s so ridiculous but I love it because it’s so silly that I forget my worries every time.

“And while we’re at it, let’s talk about Quidditch. Remember what everyone called us at our first game as captains?”

Keith hummed, smiling softly at the memory, “I can still hear them, ‘oh, Lance and Keith, neck and neck, ultimate rivals’. Though they never called us that again—rivals, I mean.”

“Hunk said it’s because they realized that we’re actually just really gone for each other, and always have been, and that calling us rivals is the least fitting term to… describe us,” Lance explained almost nonchalantly.

Keith snorted, “So, they noticed before we did?”

“Everyone did, and according to Pidge, suffered, too. But… my point was that—Keith, every time we played Quidditch together, every time we trained together, I was the happiest with Quidditch. Back in First Year, it was just a silly dream of mine to play, but it became real and I… seeing you out there drives me on so much. You were never my rival, Keith. You were and are my biggest motivation to this day.”

“Lance…” Keith said, exhaling shakily. In that moment, Keith decided to spill a secret, one he couldn’t bring himself to voice last night, but now – he felt like there was no time like the present to confess.

“You are the only reason I am still playing.”

Suddenly, it hit Lance like a flash, and their conversation from last night came back to his mind, “You…” he trailed off, looking down at Keith and finding him already searching for his eyes. “I thought…”

“Being good at something is only one thing, but I lack the passion to go with it. Whenever you’re out there on the field, grinning like a fucking madman, I can see how much you enjoy being there. And I love playing with you, because even though my team is so much better than yours,” (“Fucker,” Lance grinned), “you don’t care if you lose. There’s always a winner’s smile on your face.”

And then, as if Keith had bewitched him somehow, Lance couldn’t help but smile, causing him to point and remark, “See! That one…”

Lance laughed at that. Keith’s face regained its loving expression with a fearless insistency, though Lance noticed there were still flickers of doubts moving across his face.

“Keith… I am going to propose something to you. It is up to you what you wanna go through with, okay?”

The smile faded from Keith’s face and turned into a confused frown, but he nodded nonetheless.

“We’ve got the tea, right here. It will work, I can assure you that. But we can also… try our second option. See what comes from it, and just… go from there. If you’re comfortable with that.”

His heart didn’t have mercy on poor Keith. He watched Lance’s face for signs of ingenuity – not that he expected to find any, not when it was Lance in front of him, Lance who never lied to him, Lance who could never have it in his heart to lie to anyone, friend or foe.

He knew this was it, and he knew that it was on him now, too. But this time, he wouldn’t let his self-doubt and his past get in the way of something great with Lance. For years, this was all he had wanted.

“I’d prefer—I’d prefer to kiss you over all the teas that smell and taste like feet,” Keith grinned, leaving Lance with his mouth wide open and complaining.

“Yes, I should think a kiss from me is much better than feet, thank you very much.”

That left Keith chortling with laughter at Lance’s offended face, clinging to his shirt with a tight grip. And oh, dear Merlin, Lance couldn’t be cross with him for too long like that.

“Well, then,” Keith shifted to sit in Lance’s lap, surprising the other boy. He clearly hadn’t expected Keith to do what he did and swallowed the lump in his throat to steady himself for what was coming.

Keith’s lips were the softest Lance had ever felt against his – not that he had much experience to speak from, though. In that moment, he felt like every tentative kiss as a kid, every embarrassing smooch with thirteen-year-olds had prepared him for this kiss with Keith.

Keith, whom he loved, who was loving him back, like everything had finally fallen into place. He wished he could shout it from every rooftop in the world, proclaim his love for Keith to anyone who would listen – he was a romantic like that, and who could blame him?

Though, as their lips moved in sync, he remembered a phrase of importance in need to be voiced and pulled back. They were both breathing heavily, a sign that there was much more to the kiss than a simple brush of lips. Its nature was of a feverish desperation and undeniable passion that had been trapped inside for a number of years.

Being the first to regain his composure, Lance rested his forehead against Keith’s, and exhaled, “Keith Kogane, I am so fucking in love with you, it’s crazy.”

Keith only kissed him some more, uttering words of adoration in response. The tea was forgotten, and the Triwizard Tournament a worry for later.

For now, all they needed were the other’s company – and it had been a long time coming.

 

ღ ღ ღ

 

“For the last time, Lance. You look fine. _As hell_ ,” Keith sighed, flopping down on Lance’s bed in a full-body costume, his tie hanging loosely around his neck. Lance, on the other hand, was stood in front of a mirror, looking at himself from every angle in search for any flaw in his outfit.

“You don’t understand, Keith!” He whipped around, facing Keith. “This is the Yule Ball, it’s the most important event of the entire year, and for years to come – additionally, it’s the only good thing about this bloody Tournament we can enjoy with no worries.”

“The third task won’t be until April,” Keith remarked, sensing Lance’s concern.

“Exactly what I’m saying,” he replied. “But I don’t want to talk about the tasks tonight. We’ve earned us a break, don’t you think? Celebrate our… 40-ish days anniversary? Which is, coincidentally, on Valentine’s Day.”

At that, Keith laughed and got up, walking towards Lance. “To be precise, it’s been 45 days since we kissed. But who’s counting?” He grinned cheekily at his boyfriend, tilting his head up to peck him on his lips. The other boy smiled back at him.

“You really think I’m good to go?”

“All eyes will be on you tonight,” Keith assured him, and Lance chuckled softly, a sound Keith had come to love even more ever since they had gotten together at last. He’d always react that way when he was flustered, and just as much as Lance loved to embarrass Keith, Keith took a delight in the way Lance’s cheek would get that rosy tinge when he flirted with him.

It was a back and forth they both loved.

“Only because the oh-so-noble champion of Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft has deemed me worthy enough to accompany him to the Yule Ball. I shall be honored by the opportunity to open the Ball with you, Mr. Kogane.”

To emphasize his gratitude, Lance took a step back and bowed to Keith. As he came back up, he noticed a change in Keith’s expression: he appeared rather puzzled now, a shadow of fear passing over his face.

He asked, “O-open the—the ball?”

“Oh, Keith, darling, did you forget about our dance?”

His eyes blew wide immediately at the mention of his worst nightmare and Keith let out a breathy, “Oh, Merlin no.”

Lance laughed with immense volume. “Didn’t they give the Slytherins dancing lessons?”

“This is worse than the first two tasks combined, I will embarrass myself in front of the whole school and two other schools at the same time – I should’ve never become champion in the first place,” Keith complained, groaning in pain as he rested his head on Lance’s shoulder. But his boyfriend didn’t give him the pity he craved in that moment, rather he found Keith’s antics amusing, if not to say ridiculous.

“You big baby, I am the dramatic one between the two of us. You are making way too big a deal out of a small dance,” Lance tried to calm him down, patting his back gently, all the while suppressing another laugh. Keith frowned up at him, “But I can’t even dance a small dance! I can’t dance, Lance.”

All of a sudden, Lance smirked at him and Keith knew he was up to something, something of mischievous intentions. “No, Lance…”

Then, in a matter of mere seconds, Lance put his arm around Keith’s waist and pulled him close, using his free hand to find Keith’s. He instructed, “Put your hand on my shoulder, come on.” Keith did, realizing what Lance was doing. “I always thought it was easier if you’re not thinking about what you’re doing. Being aware of your limbs only makes you stiff and that _does_ look embarrassing. So, just follow my lead, and don’t stress too much about it.

“And… let’s go: one, two, three, one, two, three…”

The dorm room didn’t provide too much space for their dancing, though as they swayed in circles around the room, music in their minds, even Keith began to smile. And despite Lance’s reminder, Keith thought too much about it, stumbled and stumbled, but laughed it off after the third time it happened.

Just when they were about to attempt a twirl, Keith’s two left feet almost made him fall again, but Lance steadied him just in time. They stopped in their tracks, hands still clasped together and dopey smiles on their faces. Their lips found each other without the slightest hesitation. They got lost in the feeling of the other, of the warmth of their bodies pressing together that they didn’t even realize how much time was passing.

Before they knew it, they were interrupted by a subtle cough, startling them both. It was Hunk, dressed up beautifully with a yellow tie around his collar. Behind him, his girlfriend Shay appeared, a perplexed expression on her face which turned into one of vigor when she saw Keith and Lance in their embrace.

“Uh, really hate to interrupt you guys, but it’s starting soon and we shouldn’t be late,” Hunk reminded them, and Lance laughed heartily.

“Got ya, Hunk. We’ll be right down.”

Hunk nodded, “Don’t be too long. I’d rather, uhm, not—you know. _Again_.”

Flashing them another smile, Shay followed Hunk as he went to the Common Room, and gave them a small wave, “See you at the ball.”

Alone again, Lance kissed Keith one last time before he stepped back slightly, moving his hands to Keith’s neck to tie the mess that’d been sitting there all evening. There was a smug smile on Lance’s face, which Keith loathed greatly. Not much for public displays of affection, Keith didn’t like so much as holding hands even in front of their friends – all the more reason for Lance to embarrass Keith with surprise kisses on the cheek, or the occasional arm around his waist.

Keith would blush every time, just like he did just now from having been caught in such an intimate act.

When Lance was done, his hand rested against Keith’s suit, stroking the fine fabric. “As much as I would love to stay here with you all evening, I have a date with the Hogwarts champion to attend.”

“We really have to go?” Keith asked as a last act of desperation, but even to him it sounded only halfhearted. Lance just smiled.

“Let’s just enjoy this evening, all right?”

Lance took Keith’s hand into a tight grip, and went to leave, as Keith called, “Lance?”

“Yes?”

“I… I love you,” he confessed in a shaky voice, a certain nervousness evident. But it seeped away when Lance started to beam and gave him the biggest of smile along with a squeeze of his hand, “I love you, too, Keith.”

It was one of many milestones their relationship would have, though undoubtedly, with a world slowly but surely falling victim to a darker kind of magic, they knew the solace of their love would take them through the storm.

 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END!!!  
> i really really hope you liked it!  
> this idea has been sitting in my head for three years now, and i originally wanted to write it with my then favorite ship jeanmarco, but back then, i wasn't any good at writing. i'd have never expected to ever write it, but, well, here we are. character development.  
> so, leave a kudo or a comment, recommend to a friend, i don't know, BUT IF YOU LIKED IT, i'd be very happy to hear from you! 
> 
> you can find me complaining about my writing in both german and english at @smuguardian on twitter ;)

**Author's Note:**

> i worked very hard on this and as i am still practicing my writing skills, i have a lot of doubts about this work. which is why, if you liked it, i would love to hear your opinion.


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